Fantastic, witty, and heartwarming. I loved Abue and thought she was wonderful.
Many thanks to Random House and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I have mixed feelings about this one. The story was good, and I thought the choice to tell the story through one side of a series of phone calls was really cool and interesting. However, for me, the formatting made it really difficult to catch on to the flow of the writing and differentiate between the phone calls and the flashback moments. The italics helped, but it was so back and forth that I struggled for a bit to get into the flow of it every time I picked the book up. That may just be a me problem personally though

This is a uniquely written book told through phone conversations from Luciana to her sister, Mari. The main focus is about Luciana’s relationship with her grandmother and learning more about her past.

The format took me a bit to get used to but once I got it I was fine. I enjoyed seeing Luciana come into herself as she navigates her family’s drama. It made me tear up in the end. Also loved all the chapter titles!

For a few years now, I have been saying that I want to read more books written by latine authors that feature latine main characters just living normal lives. I don’t want every book I read about latine characters to center on immigration trauma. I want to read about latine characters going to work and falling in love and having dinner with their families and arguing with their siblings and laughing about the ridiculousness of being in a family where telling their mom something means telling the entire family because gossip is life.

This book is that. It is a love letter to the beauty of close intergenerational relationships and, as someone who absolutely adores my grandparents, I loved it.

Luciana is a high schooler who lives with her parents and her grandmother, who she affectionately calls Abue. Luciana’s sister Mari has gone off to college, leaving Luciana alone in dealing with her mother’s judgmental comments and Abue’s eccentricities. When Abue is hospitalized, Luciana is thrust into the role of holding everyone together - keeping Mari informed, her mother in check, and Abue cared for. Abue returns home to her shared bedroom with Luciana and, as Abue wrestles through facing long-term illness, she begins to open up to Luciana about her life and her childhood.

The story is told through a series of phone calls between Luciana and Mari as Luciana updates Mari on what is going on at home. The format takes some getting used to and I almost put it down because I struggled to follow it at the beginning. But I am so glad I kept with it because I ended up loving it!

For my fellow latines with close-knit families, Oye is a must. And for everyone else, treat yourself to this window into the chaos and love of growing up latine with a family that doesn’t believe in personal space. It’s magical.

Luciana has a potent voice and is your best example of a young teenager in literature. It is a genuinely hilarious comedy that follows a Colombian American family's dynamics via two sisters' phone calls. Capturing a hectic time in their lives, a hurricane, and Abue's health concerns, we watch them grow closer than ever. A beautiful story that you can soar through.

The premise for this upcoming release is unique. Luciana is on the phone with her sister Mari, and all we get is Luciana’s side. Loaded with lots of family drama which centers around the matriarch of the family…Abue-grandma. Now this book has a beautiful cover and it’s what made me gravitate towards it. I wanted to love this book but it just wasn’t for me and that’s ok. If you read it and love it I would love to talk.

Thank you to
Melissa Mogollon, Random House Publishing, and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

What a fantastic book. I like when books are written a bit differently and this one is written through phone conversations. This book has great humor as well as heart as it explores the relationships between generations of Colombian-American women. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC.

I tried to love this book. I believe this book will and can be loved by someone but that someone is just not me. I just was not able to get into the flow of the book and conversation. This was not a common writing style for me and I loved that but I could not get into the story like I should’ve been. I hope others are able to read and love this book.

I’ll be honest, the format was REALLY difficult for me to get into. It’s more stream of consciousness than anything else, but after about a third of the book it didn’t distract me anymore. I loved this story and how is was funny and heartbreaking at the same time. Luciana gas complicated relationships with all of the women in her family, but she deeply loves each of them. Getting to watch her become a more reflective person as the story progressed was really beautiful, and a few parts made me well up with emotion.

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Spoilers.
This book had me all over the place emotionally. It's funny, sad, heartbreaking at times, agonizing, hysterical.
The core of this book is the relationship between sisters and finding yourself. The whole book is written as if the reader is only hearing Luciana's side of a phone call with her sister, Mari. The reader gets information when Luciana responds to the unheard question by Mari or in her exposition. It's fantastic. The reader can sense the humor, frustration and sadness from both characters. Without Mari for Luciana to talk to, we wouldn't have a story or know what Luciana's relationship is with her mother and grandmother. The book starts out with Luciana and her mother evacuating Florida during Irma. When they go back home, her grandmother, Abue, is hospitalized and diagnosed with cancer that effects her liver. It all falls on Luciana to take care of her family and keep in contact with her sister, Mari who is away at school. Over almost a year, we see their relationship tense up, Luciana explode, and the slow re-building. Over this same time period, Luciana learns about her torrid family history and relays everything back to Mari, trying to understand her grandmother, and her mother.
Beautifully written, with well-thought out characters. Luciana is figuring out what to do with her life, who she is, and how to be herself despite her mother telling her not to and hiding herself from the one person she loves the most - her grandmother.
100% recommend.

Oye is a very hilarious yet touching book.

The format is a bit weird and I will admit that by the end I was still struggling a fair bit with it. The conversations, and phone calls are all mashed together and are one sided which takes some getting used to.

Once you do however expect a funny coming-to-age novel.

Oye by Melissa Mogollon is a fascinating and inventive novel. Told as a series of one-sided phone calls, this is a coming of age story, in the vein of a Judy Blume novel, covering the senior year of the youngest of a large Columbian-American family.

Luciana frantically calls her older sisters Mari who is away at college. Their Abue has moved into her room, and now, with a hurricane on the way, is refusing the leave. Even worse, Abue has a devastating illness and is demanding that Luciana be her caretaker and co-passenger on her journey of personal reflection.

Luciana is forced to grow up quickly and must rise to the occasion as the rest of the family starts to fall apart.

I think this is a interesting and new way to tell a story and I quite enjoyed it. I think Melissa Mogollon is a talent on the rise and I'm excited to see what happens next.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

Thank you to NetGalley for this Advanced Reader Copy. If it wasn't an ARC, it probably would have been a DNF. The format takes a while to settle - I had to read the first few pages over before I understood that it's basically a monologue of a woman talking to her sister on the phone, where the sister's side of the conversation is implied. It's often hard to tell *who* is speaking.

The MC is whiny and dramatic - which tracks for a teenage girl in Miami, surrounded by perfection and living in the shadow of her absent older sister, trying to find her sexuality and voice and space in the world. However, the sad story told through the MC's voice is nearly lost to the format, and the relationship between the MC and her grandmother is nearly lost to the desperation of trying to engage her sister.

In the end, this book gave me feels that I wasn't expecting as I slogged through the teenage monologue. I didn't love this debut, but I'd look for more from this author to see how her later works stack up.

I love the family dynamics and the chisme throughout this book! I literally laughed out loud and at time made my bilingual husband read parts so he could understand why I was cracking up. This book perfectly captures what it’s like to be in a family full of chismosas and the dynamics that play into family conflict due to different expectations and well-kept secrets. As a hospice worker, with Mexican lineage and married to a Honduran, there was something super relatable about the emotional conflict when it came to the medical aspect and how the end-of-life health of one of the characters was addressed.

I will say the one thing I struggled with off and on was knowing who was speaking and when. The entire book is told through phone conversations between Mari and Luciana, and it does not specifically state who is saying what so at times I had to read and reread to full grasp who was saying what. There were times when the text was italicized which made it easier to differentiate. I think this could be wonderful as an audiobook narrated by two bilingual women! Some things are just funnier in Spanish/Spanglish and the author nailed it!

I would like to thank NetGalley, Melissa Mogollon, and the publisher for access to this advanced copy ebook.

Oye was a funny coming of age story! I absolutely loved that the story was told through phone conversations between Luciana and her sister Mari. We also learn a lot about Luciana’s grandmother, Abue, and her life story. This was such an amazing read.

Such a fun read! This book had me laughing out loud, contemplating life and feeling like I have a new second family. It felt like listening in on a really juicy phone conversation of the person next to you at a coffee shop. So much family drama and love wrapped into this fast-paced, addictive read.

The characters felt so authentic. This dysfunctional but loving family feels so real and familiar. Abue is the stand-out character. She’s is hilariously self-involved and surprisingly terrifying while somehow being the most lovable and wise character in the book. Her comments had me giggling the whole time. Luciana (the MC) has noticeable growth in the book as she starts to understand her family better and find her path. Her relationship with her “almond mom” and her sister are so relatable. She’s a bit of the odd ball of the family which causes some friction but at the end of the day they still love each other.

The one-sided phone call format does take a few pages to get used to. Just persevere through the first 5 pages and you’ll get the hang of what’s going on! I found that by a few chapter in my brain was easily filling the missing pieces. I think it was a super unique and brave way to write your debut novel so props to the author! Can’t wait to see what she writes next!

Fantastic 5 stars. I never expected a book told exclusively through telephone combos to make me bawl. Thanks for the arc

Fantastic voice and epic storytelling. Drew me in immediately. I do love a multigenerational drama, and Oye delivered!

Engaging cast of characters, interesting plot... weird epistolary (?) style. I love epistolary novels in general, but this time I just found it distracting (assuming text messages count as letters). Halfway through the book, I still wasn't sure whether these were text messages between sisters, phone calls, or a mix. Honestly, sometimes I doubted who was even participating. Sometimes it seemed like the protagonist was having a one-sided conversation, other times it seemed obvious that she was talking to her sister. If your format is so distracting that readers have to keep backtracking to see who's talking to who, maybe it's worth a rethink (or a reformat - this would work well in a movie).

The grandmother's story was really my favorite. Despite the awkward style, I can just imagine the family dynamics and some of the scenarios so well. The term "coming of age" gets thrown around a lot, but it's not unwarranted here. Even if the main character Luciana weren't a teenager in the book, she's going through a lot and learning how she fits into the world and her family as an adult.

Told in a one sided telephone conversation Lucianna, a Colombian American teen who has recently come out and is struggling to find her identity, relays the events at the familiy’s home in Florida to her old sister Mari who is a college student at GW in DC. Abue is ill, Lucianna’s mother and Abue both use Lucianna to translate the seriousness of her condition between the doctors and Abue. Lucianna’s mother is one tough, almost cruel mother, her grandmother has a story that she has never shared and Lucianna’s older sister Mari is obviously trying very hard to break free from her childhood home. The book is filled with tragedy so the humor that Lucianna brings is very welcome. However, keep in mind that as a young person whose mother has firmly rejected her sexuality the humor hides pain. Abue just feels like an old narrow minded woman until she has told her story and made a decision. The ending of the book is freeing for both Lucianna and the reader. Lucianna begins to navigate her way and the reader who has often been confused about whose voice they are hearing (Lucianna, grandma, mom, Mari, the doctor or several others) is left with a solid and satisfactory ending.