Content warning: verbal abuse, diagnosis of chronic illness, violence, rape

We all struggle with uncovering who we want to be and if we aren’t careful end up being guided on this journey strictly by what motivates us–even if the motivation comes from a bad place. In Xochitl Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming the titular character Olga Acevedo and her brother Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo contend with the reality of who they have become in 2017 against who they want to be.

It’s 2017 in New York City and life is what it is. For the Acevedo siblings of Brooklyn this means Prieto roams around the city on official politician business that he feels shows how connected he is to the people he represents while also maintaining his status as a middle of the road representative. As long as his pre-teen daughter has no complaints and his constituents aren’t up in arms, Prieto Acevedo is sure he’s doing an all around good job at being exactly who he needs to be—mostly. Olga, on the other hand, cannot let who she needs to be occupy too much of her mind. Her wealthy wedding clientele ensure that as long as she continues to be a highly sought after wedding planner that can cater to their greatest wedding whims, she’ll never be in need. While their lives bear all the hallmarks of successful adulthood, there is a voice that regularly reminds them of how disappointing they truly are: their erstwhile revolutionary mother. Having left them to be raised by the rest of their family in adolescence, their mother has nevertheless made her thoughts on their choices well known in her sole form of communication to the pair since her exile, via letters. Each letter reprimands Prieto as a sellout who is a disappointment to the very people he aims to represent every day that he fails to disavow working with rich donors and advocate for the most progressive of policies. They say much the same about Olga’s clientele and question how much she’s truly inherited from her parent’s revolutionary bent.

On the face, neither sibling seems to have internalized these attacks on their personhood. But that could very well be because of the personal secrets they each have worked hard to obscure from public view. Prieto’s secret—though not so secret within the family—surfaces in the most traumatic of ways and how he deals with it becomes aligned with the pressures he’s faced professionally. Olga’s secret is in no danger of becoming revealed despite the number of TV appearances she makes or how long she is in the public eye. But as soon as she gets into one of the deepest romantic relationships of her life, she begins to question her choices and whether her mother’s critiques were right all along. When Hurricane Maria hits and their mother reveals her location and occupation in Puerto Rico, both siblings are tested as they figure out what they will do to resolve all of their decisions, personal and political, which are intertwined as much as they are for everyone else.

Olga Dies Dreaming is a story about adulthood and all the choices we make along the way of defining what we want our lives to be. What name are we expected to live up to? Which needs do we prioritize? What does it all mean when you’re not sure what the ‘right’ choice is?

I loved this book so much 2021 and 2022 favorite
This book was an experience, a true delight. For so long I have wanted a story that took place in the present, that had characters that looked, sounded, and felt like me or people in my family. Specifically one that wasn’t Young Adult. Gonzalez gave me that. I saw Us in its pages.

Olga is so many things: bold, strong, independent, smart, free. She is also scared, lost, wounded, numb, unsure. So much is covered in this book: rape, abandonment, political corruption, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, HIV, addiction, LOVE and the endless ripple effect all of these things place on a family of Boricuas.

The book filled me with so much pride. Para mi gente and our island that I love but don’t know. I can’t wait for this to get into more hands. I’ll be back with more to say closer to Pub Day but I am looking forward to more stories like this.

“…It’s about not chasing an external ideal, not trying to fit someone else’s vision for you and instead building with the community of people who simply accept you as you are.” Pa’lante ❤️‍🔥

This book is extremely well written! The writing was in my opinion, amazing. I had some trouble with the story bouncing around timeline-wise. I spread out reading this over a couple weeks so trying to keep track of when things were happening was a little harder.

I didn’t mind that the story was told from the POV of Olga and her brother Prieto, but I could have done without the couple chapters from Richard “Dick”, that guy was a disgusting asshole. I don’t know if those chapters were to get us to hate him more, but I don’t know if we NEEDED them.

I thought the story dragged in some areas, and I thought some chapters had a lot of info dumping. There was some funny moments, and a lot of dark ones.

I really liked the characters. They weren’t perfect, but I personally like characters that are real and flawed. Also, Matteo should be protected at all costs. He was a true delight. Olga’s mother though? Omg. The letters. The manipulation. The hold she had over Olga and Prieto.

I overall enjoyed the book, all except the final chapter? I think with all the buildup and I saw I was getting close to the end trying to figure out how this was all going to wrap up. It seemed a bit rushed and abrupt, and then the final chapter jumps to 2025, and it’s not labeled an epilogue, but it pretty much is. The author casually threw in the pandemic, and I was kind of not sure how I felt about that? I get so weird about seeing that in books right now. I have no idea why and it’s probably just a personal thing I have to deal with.

I think this would make a great book club book, there’s a lot to unpack and chat about and would make for a great convo! Also I saw it’s already on its way to being a show on Hulu, so I’m excited to watch it and see it on screen so quickly. Aubrey Plaza is set to play Olga and Ramon Rodriguez is set to play Prieto. The author is writing the show too, so fingers crossed it’s good!!

A heartfelt intelligent novel about family and identity. I appreciated the interspersion of history with current times. It was heartbreaking but funny at times. I love novels set in New York and the scenes were set so beautifully in the city. This book is not for everyone but I enjoyed it.

DNF @ 19%

I was so sad to not vibe with this one and I figured I’d come back to it another day, but after seeing a few reviews somewhat carrying the same sentiment, I figured I just wouldn’t vibe with it at all.

I was really looking forward to this one (and will still watch the tv series!), but I just thought the book dragged a bit and in some parts, just couldn’t keep up. I would’ve loved to keep learning about the history of Puerto Rico, but it probably would’ve gone over my head in this one.

Totally a me thing/problem!

Olga Dies Dreaming

I had no clue what Olga Dies Dreaming was about when I started reading it. Honestly, the cover was just so alluring. But from that first chapter, I was deeply interested.

Olga was an incredibly captivating main character - flawed yet so unwilling to accept imperfections. I found myself being put off by her and had to ask myself why. I am very connected to personality types and could tell that Olga was the exact opposite of me. She’s a thinker, a problem-solver, logical. And me? My life is entirely dictated by my feelings.

So once I got a grip on who Olga was, I was better able to understand her and enjoy her story. And her story was very messy.

I thought this book was women’s fiction, and sometimes that tracks. At other times, it was more historical, political, romantic. It’s queer and contemporary. And while that consistent shifting made it more challenging to read at times, that’s what made the book what it is. There are chapters from her brother Prieto, and some of the chapters are letters written from their mother, but overarchingly, this story is Olga’s, and it’s intersectional feminism at its best. We are not just women. We are not just feminists, or activists, or our jobs. We are not just sexual objects, or what we’re perceived as by others. We are so many things wrapped into one and this book exudes that overlap of identities.

The character background and development is absolutely undeniable. And while Olga’s story was the star of the show, Prieto’s story was also fascinating and heartbreaking, ringing much to true to so many in this day and age.

I absolutely recommend Olga Dies Dreaming.

From the outside, wedding planner Olga and her politician brother Prieto are doing well. But the truth is that their family is dysfunctional, and their absent, radical mother’s help is only making things worse. As the various forces in Olga's collide, she must reckon with her own family's past and present.

THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING. It's funny. It's heartbreaking. It's thought-provoking. It's so smart and perfectly balanced, and I seriously can't stop talking about it. The characters are richly nuanced, and the slow-building intensity kept me invested in the story from page one. I absolutely adore this book!

I fell in love with this book immediately. It’s a family story, a love story, a sociopolitical story, a New York story — all wrapped into one. Olga is intoxicating and dynamic. The characters run deep and diverse, and they feel real and fully lived in. Gonzalez’s writing is elevated yet accessible all at once. I stan……

An riveting plot that moves between Brooklyn and Puerto Rico, engagingly flawed characters who have a hard time getting out of their own way in order to save their relationships with each other and propulsive and often satirically funny prose made this book one I could not put down.

What starts as a romance story about a Puerto Rican wedding planner, her Congressman brother and radical mami ends up being so much more. The first 75% of the plot is getting to know Olga’s dating disasters and her family dynamics while battling her internal dialogue of self-worth via her mami’s abusive letters. We also get to know her brother’s secrets and his relationship with their idealist Mami. The build up to Hurricane Maria was both humorous and government conspiring. The aftermath was a perfect storm of family and political revelations. Olga Dies Dreaming was an array of culture, capitalism and love! Highly recommend.

This story is rich in Puerto Rican culture and history; I learned so much without feeling like sitting in a lecture. Information weaves throughout the narrative, mainly from Olga and Prieto's mother's letters as she rants against the world. I knew a little about political activist groups that become violent, and this broadened my awareness, introducing a wider perspective on a lot of cultural and political ideologies and movements.

Olga is the most confusing character. She's strong and in control at times, maintaining aloof romantic relationships that fit her needs and running an impressive business - but she's also doing a lot of shady shit. Like, she is kind of a part of the Russian mafia and scamming her clients. And all these sides of her are presented in the same light, carrying the same amount of weight and morality. So how am I supposed to know what to think if Xóchitl González doesn't tell me what I'm supposed to think?! Thankfully, Olga has Matteo in her life - without him, I'm reasonably certain she would have ended up as a full-blown member of the mafia, or in prison, or something along these lines. So Matteo becomes a sort of moral backdrop to which Olga's actions can be contrasted and put into perspective, not only for the reader but for Olga as well.

My favourite aspect, and the most inspirational part of Olga Dies Dreaming , is the insightful discussion of activism and the role it has played throughout history as well as its importance and potential in future. It doesn't sugarcoat how activism works, and in fact, goes into the gritty details and how far some groups will go outside of the law to achieve their goals. Instead, it portrays the roles played by many different kinds of people in social movements, leaving it up to the reader to draw their own conclusions.

I appreciated the difficult differentiation between unavoidable moments disguised as choice and difficult choices disguised as unavoidable. Both Olga and Prieto face a lot of these moments, and they don't always make the honourable, or arguably 'right' choice - which makes them interesting and more realistic characters. Of course, it's always easy to judge from the outside when others make seemingly unthinkable decisions, but Olga Dies Dreaming drives home the point repeatedly that no one ever knows the whole story.

The breadth of this novel is breathtaking. Olga Dies Dreaming touches on militant activist groups, addiction, cultural norms, AIDS, hoarding, relationships, and hurricanes (and those are just the main topics). The writing is easy to read but sophisticated; it caught me off guard at times to be reading about wedding planning and Russian mobsters in the same context, but it made the story more exciting rather than unbelievable. This is my first 2022 book, and it's setting a high standard for any other books that will be published (technically) next year.

First of all - what a cover!

Olga Dies Dreaming follows Olga Acevedo, an established wedding planner in New York City, and her brother Pedro, a NYC congressman, as they come to terms with the actions of their parents and the significant influence these actions have had on their lives. The novel is set surrounding the time of Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico in 2017 and devastated the island.
I had a tough time getting into the book - at first, I did not like the writing at all. It felt like it was trying very hard to be a lot of things at once - and it made for clunky sentences: "The coitus had been remarkably satisfying, the proper amount of fast and slow, rough and gentle, biting and caressing." (30) Sorry but that does not sound like a sentence a person would actually say when describing good sex. But when I stopped focusing on the bits that were annoying to me, I was able to get into the story and characters more, and then I started to really get invested. I warmed up to the characters, and I think González did a good job at fleshing them out, making them flawed and difficult and frustrating, and also likable and easy to root for. I love stories with big families who show up for each other, and that's definitely what I got here (Lola and Mabel, love them). I will say that I think the book is doing a lot - maybe a bit too much. There is so much going on - Olga dating Matteo, Prieto's secrets, their mother, the politics - and I felt that some parts were being rushed or were maybe a little underdeveloped because so much was happening. I still didn't love the writing in the end, but the characters and story and its warmth totally made up for that.

I really liked the book and I feel like the subjects were really well approached, I will be recommending this in the future

Olga Dies Dreaming was a challenging read for me. I love the setting and I really enjoyed the characters; I just wish I had more of the fiction elements. Often times I feel like there was an excessive amount of political or legal jargon and it really drained the momentum of the plot. I wish I could have gotten more from the relationships between Olga and Pietro and their mother. The trauma they experienced at such a young age was vital to their development as adults, and I wanted to feel and see more of the complicated relationships. I loved the moment between Pietro and his mother and it didn't deliver the punch it should have because we didn't get enough of his internal conflict with his history.

I love finding a book that’s a good mashup of genres and that’s exactly what 𝐎𝐋𝐆𝐀 𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆 by Xóchitl González was for me. A little bit family drama, a little bit suspense, and a little bit romance, all in perfect balance. This is the story of Olga and Pietro, third generation Puerto Ricans living in New York. Olga is a high-end wedding planner and Pietro is a U.S. Congressman. They both seem to have it together, but we all know appearances can be deceiving, and their lives are far from transparent. ⁣
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Both are haunted by their activist parents. One’s dead, the other they haven’t seen for more than 20 years, though regularly receive cryptic missives from. Neither Olga nor Pietro can escape the shadow their parents cast. Plus, there’s a lot going on with their large extended family and even more in their personal lives. ⁣
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Along the way debut author González gave the reader a good lesson in Puerto Rican history and the repercussions of ongoing colonialism there. Everything built toward 2017’s Hurricane Maria that devastated the island, just as both Olga’s and Pietro’s lives were being upended. 𝘖𝘭𝘨𝘢 𝘋𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 was a fast, fun read with some real depth to it. I’ll be excited to read whatever Xóchitl González writes next! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣
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Thanks to @flatiron_books for an electronic copy of #OlgaDiesDreaming via @netgalley.

I just visited Puerto Rico so I was so fascinated by the politics of it in this story! When I visited a few months ago there were still lots of homes that were abandoned and damaged from Hurricane Maria. The island was stunning and the people were so welcoming.

I think I went into this story with more expectations of Olga's wedding planning and the mother showing up sooner and then dealing with that. There were letters from the mother here and there but she didn't really show up until the very end of the book! However, the writing was beautiful and the story was interesting. I would recommend this to anyone that wants to learn a little bit more about Puerto Rico and how they might feel about being part of the USA.

Thank you Netgalley and Flatiron books for a copy of this book.

This book encompasses so much and contains all the elements of a fascinating read. It begins with educating the reader about Puerto Rico, I learned so much detail about the history of America's territory.. There's that element of suspense when family'secrets are uncovered and how shocking some of them are.. There's political corruption and irregular goings-on on the part of Olga, a sophisticated wedding planner and her brother, Prieto, a U.S. congressman, Familial love, or lost thereof, is examined.
It's a timely, contemporary book that touches on current societal themes. This was a debut novel and the author's potential is so apparent. I did find the story bogged down in some parts and became repetitious at times but I am looking forward to her next work.

As a Brooklyn girl I was so excited to read this book based in Brooklyn by a fellow Brooklynite.I was immediately drawn into the story Olga a wedding planner with her huge personality entertained me from her first words.The scene with her client the mother of the bride had me hysterical.Olga and her brother Pietro the politician kept me laughing involved enjoying their world.Thanks to #netgalley#flatironbooks.

Xochitl Gonzalez makes her debut with OLGA DIES DREAMING, an introspective, emotionally resonant and searingly current exploration of two Puerto Rican American siblings and the long-absent mother who crashes into their lives in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

Set mainly in the summer of 2017, the book follows Olga and Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo, who have long defined themselves and their ambitions by their genius mother’s goals and absences. A former Young Lord turned radical, Blanca has always skirted along the periphery of her children’s existence, favoring powerful causes, most notably the independence of Puerto Rico. Though she has been largely absent from their physical upbringing, she has kept a close eye on them, commenting on her findings --- and their failings --- through long missives sent to remind them that she is watching and to tear them down when they are at their most vulnerable. With her voice a constant refrain in their heads, they have always chased success, but almost never happiness.

At 40, Olga is a disillusioned but incredibly savvy wedding planner who caters to the elite, earning their respect with her attention to detail while lining her pockets with markups and a not-so-legal alcohol deal with the Russian mob. She bends the rules, but her clients can afford her extravagant fees and are often too busy showing off to notice any discrepancies. Besides that, her more liberal clientele adore their “spicy” wedding planner and their chance to brush up against something so exotic and urban. She maintains her sanity by reminding herself that most weddings, marriages and love stories are a sham, and enjoying romantic trysts with a former client’s father. But Olga is no con artist: an Ivy League graduate with a killer sense for guiding conversations, she has merely spotted opportunities where no one else saw them and taken full advantage. The American Dream, you might call it.

Prieto is a popular congressman known as the Latino Obama. He is as handsome as he is intelligent, as capable of calling a major donor “ma” and dapping a teenage volunteer as he is of speaking of complex policy, hand-delivering aid, and meeting the expectations and challenges of his mostly white peers. Like Olga, Prieto is driven by a need to succeed, though his career trajectory aligns more closely with his mother’s, which helps him feel like he is living up to her lofty standards. But he too is unlucky in love, and has found that hiding his innermost desires has cost him deeper connections with the people around him, including his sister and his daughter. It also has put him in the crosshairs of an elaborate blackmailing plot that pits him forcibly against his values, mainly where his ancestors’ homeland is concerned.

When we meet the Acevedo siblings, big things are brewing in America: an inept president and years of fossil fuel abuse have made for a disastrous change in climate, heralded by freak storms and unguarded by relief efforts (sound familiar?). As a Puerto Rican politician, Prieto feels (and is often expected to feel) responsible for protecting the Americans of Puerto Rico, too frequently forgotten by their mainland peers. Olga, meanwhile, has grown sick of her wealthy, privileged older lover who thinks the height of romance is sending erotic photos. When she meets Matteo, a smooth-talking hoarder who is genuinely curious about her, her family and her heritage, she feels like she has finally found someone who might understand her.

As Olga and Prieto balance their careers with their personal lives, all while monitoring the dismal situation in storm-torn Puerto Rico, Gonzalez embarks on a careful, candid character study. The siblings, driven by their mother’s harsh words and rigid ideals, act as perfect foils to one another. Where Olga is straightforward, Prieto is cautious; where Olga is cynical, Prieto is pure hope. And although Olga has set her course for success and only success, Prieto’s seemingly pure-hearted need to help people is backed by his desire to be seen doing good. The parallels between the two are graceful and deeply satisfying, but never too tidy. Gonzalez’s prose is dynamic, engaging and packed to the brim with keen insights.

The siblings’ narratives are punctuated by letters from their mother, a woman who doesn’t “know the difference between missives and mothering” and who spends as much time trying to recruit her children to help her liberate Puerto Rico from capitalist pigs as she does convincing them that they’ll never be true Puerto Ricans as long as they continue to follow the American Dream. Though her letters do not help label her a good parent, or even a good recruiter for the cause, they do interweave with her children’s lives in poignant ways. She may come on strong, but she shares some harsh truths about the plight of Latinx people trying to assimilate in America while holding on to their roots.

With their own lives falling apart and years of toxic family secrets rising to the surface, Olga and Prieto find, for the first time, that they must define themselves on their own terms. But Blanca isn’t done messing with them just yet, and with the arrival of Hurricane Maria, she has one final (violent, militaristic) scheme to secure the freedom of Puerto Rico. She just needs her two rudderless, hurt children to help her…at any cost.

Both a novel about dysfunctional families and the ways that early hurts can warp an entire existence, and the corruption present at all levels of government, OLGA DIES DREAMING is a whip-smart, utterly fresh take on familial strife, race relations and what it means to be successful in America. Gonzalez is a lively, creative writer, and her exploration of diasporic identity is a vital contribution to the canon of works about the Latinx experience in America. Come for the laugh-out-loud lavish wedding descriptions, stay for surly, brilliant Olga, and never, ever forget this lively cast of characters, all fighting for independence --- be it from a colonizing nation or a mother’s airtight hold.

I will start off by saying that this book was definitely marketed in a different way than it should have been. This book is an intense read, and has a lot of moving parts. The characterization of the protagonists were strong, complicated, and messy.

The critiques: I felt like this book was trying to do too much. The first half of the book felt like a different book than the second half & it was kind of hard to follow at times. I also felt that the conversation around HIV and AIDS were weaponized in ways that I thought was harmful, and the sexual assault scene was very painful to read. When an author tries to tackle many issues, I believe sometimes the sensitivity is lost. A sensitivity read was needed, especially I think towards the end. A lot was happening in regards to hurricane Maria impacts, violence, greed, and more. I wanted more of some characters and less of others. There were also just...a lot of characters.

The good parts: As someone who is not familiar with Puerto Rican history, this book does an incredible job weaving in important social context. I learned a lot about US involvement in Puerto Rico, and this book does tackle important conversations around colonialism, occupation, what it means to be part of the Puerto Rican diaspora, genocide and revolution. I think the setting of Brooklyn was super compelling and well done--it gave a lot of context to the book.

Because of the good parts, I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading this one. This book is messy, but I'm wondering if that's part of the point of this book. There are a lot of important conversations this book can start. However, this book can be triggering so I would proceed with caution.