A review by isabelreads
Sirena Selena by Mayra Santos-Febres

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A fascinating novel about passing across all sorts of lines, a novel about transfeminity that falls into a lot of traps common in literature about trans people written by cis writers. Yet, something about the ambiguity and gorgeous writing transcends these tropes for me, allowing an interesting exploration about queerness, gender, and colonial Caribbean existence that entranced me. A kaleidoscopic novel of queer community I'll probably eventually read in Spanish as I think some of the gender play will be even more interesting in a language with grammatical gender.