User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
This writer has a strong, confident voice and at times the writing is electric. Overall the story doesn’t quite hold together with too much narrative drift but I still really liked this book, the Spanglish, the sense of place, all of it. Can’t wait to see what this writer does next.
Rating: really liked it
Fiebre Tropical offers one of the most original voices I've encountered in years. It's written in Spanglish and inflected with Colombian regional accents, and one cannot help but hear the narrator's voice in one's ear while reading. The Spanish/English distribution is about 20/80, so you don't have to know Spanish to read it, but even a slight knowledge of the language makes reading this book all the more enjoyable. While the narrator's voice comes across as casual and unpremeditated, the craft behind it is impressive—in Fiebre Tropical, every single word feels like exactly the right choice.
Fiebre Tropical is sort of a Miami-based Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Francisca, the fifteen-year-old narrator, has recently arrived in Miami with her mother and sister. The three are living with Francisca's grandmother. Francisca's mother was a high-level finance executive in Colombia; in Miami, she struggles to pay for basics while piecing together an assortment of low-paying part-time jobs.
The family's life quickly becomes structured around a largely Colombian immigrant fundamentalist church. The novel opens with preparations for a baptism of Francisca's brother—who died before Francisca was born—intended to free him from purgatory. Church services are long and rather raucous with praise, testimonies, and regular fainting among those feeling the spirit. Francisca, in her black jeans and Ramones t-shirt, is completely out of place here, but her interest in the daughter of the pastor/pastora couple who run the church leads her to do her best to embrace the community's values.
Over the course of the novel, Francisca describes herself making her way to acknowledging her lesbian identity, though she never actually uses the word "lesbian." She's telling this story to an unnamed "mi reina" (an affectionate term meaning "my queen"), so the implication is that she's well past the uncertainties of the years she's narrating, comfortable with her lesbian identity and in a solid relationship, remembering her younger self with affection and humor.
Juliana Delgado Lopera's novel will have you laughing, aching, and at times sputtering with surprise. It offers a great read for any lover of contemporary fiction. Five stars!
I received a free electronic review copy of this book from the Feminist Press via NetGalley. The opinions are my own.
Rating: really liked it
Francisca is a great narrator. The family saga thing is one I have read so many times, but the bilingual twist is great. It's a dominguera read, being from the frontera, I can totally identify with lo bilingue.
Rating: really liked it
Chaotic and lacking structure. So much rambling about the same thing for so many pages that did absolutely nothing to advance the plot.
I enjoyed the Spanglish though. For me, that was the only thing that gave the narrator a unique voice, although it could have been used in a much better way.
Rating: really liked it
In the vein of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, but with a delicious Colombian flavor all its own. The slangy Spanglish delighted me, as did the voice of our narrator, fifteen year old Francisca, who speaks directly to the reader (aka “mi reina”). Francisca is a disgruntled goth and unwilling member of an ecstatic pentecostal church of Colombian expatriates that meets in a Miami hotel convention room. The men in her family are screw-ups, long gone, and she lives with her grandmother (Tata), mother (Mami), and sister Lucia in a rundown Miami townhouse. We follow Francisca over the course of a few months as she tries to maintain her identity in a world of Dios Mios mania: ("The godless girl inside yelled
Plath, eyeliner.”) We also learn of Tata’s and Mami’s legendary pasts and follow them in their colorful present. This is one entertaining matriarchy.
The joy of this novel is rooted in the telling, so here’s a snippet of Francisca’s voice:
“Historically, Mami had been a tremenda Connoisseur of Silence, a Reina del Silencio, which meant she knew when to drop silence like a stink bomb and manipulate its emptiness, closed on its edges, to get a certain outcome. Silence, reina mia, is a powerful tool in this family.”
There is one glaring hole in this book though – none of these kids go to school, or even home school! School played a major part of Francisca’s life in Bogata, but doesn’t seem to exist in Miami. Still, no hole of any size could diminish my love of this book - to hell with school.
Rating: really liked it
I really enjoyed Juliana Delgado's creative language and writing style, as well as her dramatic prose. This coming-of-age novel manages to handle heavy topics such as migration, queerness, and mental health while also maintaining a lighthearted tone that makes it fast and easy to read. The story itself is not especially original, but the protagonist's irreverent voice infuses it with life and authenticity. I think this is a case where your opinion of the book will largely depend on your opinion of the narrator; I loved reading from her POV but I can see people being turned off by her constant sarcasm and over-the-top statements. Personally, I think it was a realistic impression of what a teenage girl's inner monologue sounds like.
That being said, the second half of the book dragged a little and I could have done without the flashback chapters which added nothing to the story. Overall I'm quite impressed with this new author's skills and look forward to reading more of her work.
Rating: really liked it
The first hundred pages are awesome! The way Delgado Lopera captures the South America immigrant family beginning life in Miami is perfect as she lays bare so much about its own and American culture, and all of this done in an English cum Spanish that I shouldn’t have worried about understanding. The part of the novel that focuses on the coming of age of Francesca, the central part of the story, is also captivating , but I just felt the whole thing lost its focus in the second half of the book. Tangents that held little bearing to the central story crept in, and things seemed to be drawn out a little too much. Having said all that, its originality makes it all worthwhile.
Rating: really liked it
Juliana Delgado Lopera's "Spanglish" debut novel is bold and unapologetic. Reading the first chapter, where the reader is flung headfirst into narrator Francisca's chaotic, 100% one-of-a-kind storytelling was an electrifying experience. In casually bilingual prose, Francisca explains to her audience that her mother is planning the baptism of a baby she miscarried 17 years ago—and Francisca has been unwittingly invited along for the ride.
Fiebre Tropical is one of those books that I feel was meant for a very particular audience and which makes me wonder how The Whites are going to react. If you don't speak Spanish, don't know about the miracles of vickvaporú, have zero aunts named Socorro and/or Milagros, and never watched the "yo soy darks" video...what is going to be your takeaway from this? (Not denigrating, just genuinely curious how an "outsider" would experience this story.)
Much as I loved this book's opening chapters, however, Delgado clearly struggled to find a focus here. She flings Francisca's meandering, explosive thoughts down on the page willy-nilly, and the end result is a book that's difficult to follow and seemingly a bit pointless. I'm not asking for a plot here, I'm just asking that this uncensored characterization be filtered through some sort of intentional lens. I wanted
some guiding principal that enabled me, upon reaching the end, to say "so
that's what this book was all about!" instead of "what was the point of all that?"
So, unfortunately, as much as I adored the author's style and her unapologetic (and clever) use of Spanglish, I didn't like
Fiebre Tropical very much in the end. I think that any novel needs strong characters and a sense of direction, but Delgado was only able to achieve one of those two here. I'm disappointed, but I think that Francisca's voice is so
vital that I don't consider my time wasted.
📌 .
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Rating: really liked it
I was left feeling very dissatisfied when I finished this book. And not just because—for once—I would have wanted the queer teen to get the girl, but because I felt so much of the characters and plot were underdeveloped and out of focus.
To start, about 1/3 of the book was devoted to the baptism of a dead baby and Mami’s obsession with being in control. It was mentioned so many times, the way she shimmies and snaps her fingers. We get it.
I also had so many unanswered questions I had been hoping would be answered: why Francesca’s family had left Colombia, why Mami was no longer a corporate executive, what had happened to her dad, and how Francesca was adjusting at school as an immigrant.
Her going to school is never mentioned, even when the summer ended. Is there no life outside of this all consuming evangélica church? Does she seriously have no friends beyond Pablo and Carmen?
It was really neat having a couple chapters devoted to La Tata and Mami, but I was still left with questions about how that forged them as women.
I was also frustrated by the queer-girl-makes-a-move-on-girl-and-decides-to-get-a-clumsy-boyfriend-instead twist. Bisexuals am I right?
At one point I even forgot Francesca had a sister named Lucia who made guest appearances and comments every now and then but always remained a two dimensional character. I was left craving some semblance of a strong sisterhood.
And Andrea comes into the story the last three chapters and ends up playing a pretty significant role. Whiplash.
There wasn’t one character in here I liked, maybe except for Pablo.
That said—I did appreciate a book that explored so many Spanish colloquialisms and offered a unique perspective that’s often lacking in coming of age queer stories. Having grown up in a Latina household, it was pretty on the nose for how Latines do not talk about mental health and alcoholism and try to shove those issues under the rug.
Rating: really liked it
Interesting! First of all, the book is written entirely in Spanglish which was wonderful! And the prose is beautiful. And we need more queer immigrant stories written by non-binary dykes! Hottest author photo I’ve ever seen. But, the book kinda lost its way by the second half, I felt like the plot dragged, and some characters and flashbacks were lost on me
Rating: really liked it
In the tradition of Phillip Roth, 50 years ago, Juliana wakes up American literature with an immigrant lesbian Colombian voice. Energetic, funny, campy, sweet, an exciting new voice.
Rating: really liked it
I have wanted to read this one since I first read about it. After 100 pages, I'm calling it quits. I just couldn't get into the narrative.
Rating: really liked it
Juliana Delgado Lopera’s debut
Fiebre Tropical has a strong voice but a narrative so disjointed, it distracts from the otherwise original and unapologetic tone of the novel. In this coming-of-age, the teenage narrator, Francisca, has just moved from Colombia to Miami. There, she struggles with alienation while her mother pushes the family into evangelism.
I am grateful to the Aspen Words Literary Prize (one of my favorite literature prizes) for introducing me to a novel I would have otherwise not encountered.
Fiebre Tropical is written in Spanglish, which I thought was pretty neat. Having made the mistake of never taking Spanish in high school, I was initially spending A LOT of time looking up phrases (and swear words and slang), but eventually, I got into a rhythm and the style was fun. Francisca also has a very engaging eye-rolling voice that feels like an authentic teenager, which was my favorite part of
Fiebre Tropical. Those were the two main things holding up
Fiebre Tropical, however, as the story meandered and I felt this short book's length. There’s not much structure, scenes go on for too long to the point where the jokes get old, and the pacing drags in the second half (however, the ending was great). It’s a shame because there was a lot I wanted to like in
Fiebre Tropical, but a great voice will only take a book so far.
Rating: really liked it
Because I skimmed/read very quickly the last quarter of this book, I don’t think it’s fair for me to give it a rating. I’d started this book ages ago and had been struggling to finish, and I just needed to put it down and move on.
The first 3/4ths is great. It reminded me of the movie “Virus Tropical” (GREAT film!) - a coming of age story, basically. The Spanglish is great. The voice is great. Funny, forceful. The setting is memorable - the dreariness of Miami, the forced fun of the evangelical church.
And then when I got to the chapter about the mother and grandmother (set in their perspectives when they were teenagers), I just stalled. On one hand, this was a clever move of the novel - to put us in the shoes of the mother and grandmother. Logically, though, I struggled. How does the character know this? I kept asking myself. This is common family lore that she’s relating? Is this being filtered through a consciousness other than the narrator’s? It felt a bit tacked on, and the momentum of the book got lost for me. If I were the editor of this book I would have challenged the need for these sections. Maybe it was unfair that I read this so soon after “Virus Tropical”, since what I liked about that story (and the first 3/4ths of this) was how committed it was to that one character’s trajectory.
However, I’m glad I read this. I’m sure I’ll go back and revisit the last quarter at one point in the future, but I was just like “I have to just get to the end now and finish or else I never will; I’ll forget who everyone is.” This would be a great book for a book club. It’s always super interesting to to see the fiction being put out by bilingual, bicultural Colombians. Like most first novels, this reads like it came from a very raw and authentic place. I’d be really interested in seeing what the author does next.
Rating: really liked it
This book is incredible. The voice of our main character is probably my favorite teenage voice I've ever read. I loved the blend of English and Spanish- the entire thing reminded me of the experience of reading The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao- one of my favorite books for the style/voice.
A quick passage to highlight the voice: "Because I'm such a considerate narrator and we're about to enter the peso pesado butthole of Christianity- the forgotten corner where culty blind devotion to Jesucristo meets merengue, bachata, and arroz con pollo- Imma walk you through that first day".
In Fiebre Tropical, we follow Francisca who is forced to immigrate from Colombia to Miami with her mother and grandmother and join the evangelical church in the town. This is a coming of age and coming out story I will never forget. It is also a story of the falsehoods of the American Dream and I will be recommending this widely!
