How not to drown in a glass of water /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE · A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK · REVIEWED ON THE FRONT COVER

From GMA BOOK CLUB PICK and WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana , an electrifying new novel about a woman who has lost everything but the chance to finally tell her story

"Will have you LAUGHING line after line...Cruz AIMS FOR THE HEART, and fires." -- Los Angeles Times

"An endearing portrait of a FIERCE, FUNNY woman." -- The Washington Post

Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of twelve sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.

Structurally inventive and emotionally kaleidoscopic, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is Angie Cruz's most ambitious and moving novel yet, and Cara is a heroine for the ages.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

After decades at the local lamp factory, Cara Romero has lost her job in the Great Recession, and she's meeting with a job counselor. Instead of talking about work, though, she spends 12 sessions spilling forth her story of wild love affairs, close but querulous relations with neighbor Lulu and sister Angela, her financial struggles and frustration with gentrification, and her heart-rasping estrangement from son Fernando. With a 100,000-copy first printing; from the author most recently of Dominicana, a Women's Prize finalist and a Good Morning America Book Club pick.

Publishers Weekly Review

Horn (Terms of Service) expands on her podcast of the same name in this lucid demystification of foot fetishes, BDSM, orgies, and other sexual kinks. Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, and her background as a dominatrix, Horn covers such practical matters as the best type of lubricant for anal fisting; what various hormones and neurotransmitters are up to during pain play; and how BDSM offers "a practical way to navigate power and pleasure in our reality as it exists right now." Turning to sexual ethics, she argues that actor Armie Hammer's text messages articulating cannibalistic fantasies were problematic not due to the fetishes themselves but the "presumptuous and coercive way" he broached them, which was compounded by his "enormous social power and privilege in comparison to his partners." Readers will appreciate Horn's graceful synthesis of cultural analysis and scientific fact, as well as her ability to broach taboo topics in nonjudgmental terms--sexual taste, she writes, is "no different from a preference for spicy or sweet food." Curious readers will glean plenty. (July)

Booklist Review

Cara Romero, a Dominican immigrant who lives in Washington Heights, loses her job when the factory where she has worked for most of her adult life closes and moves to Costa Rica. On a hot tip from her friend, Cara enrolls in an Obama-era senior workforce program, which involves regular meetings with a counselor to determine her eligibility for extended unemployment benefits and other jobs. Over 12 sessions, Cruz (Dominicana, 2019) channels Cara's warm voice, brimming with lively Dominican diction, as she responds to the counselor's unreported queries, clashing with the dry application forms Cruz intersperses between the session notes. Throughout, Cara meanders through stories that bring to life her friends Lulu and la Vieja Caridad and her estranged son and husband, whose violence precipitated her flight from the Dominican Republic. Here, too, is her correspondence with the psychic Alicia. Although a little rough around the edges, Cara shines as a caring friend and a survivor thanks to support systems that transcend family ties.

Kirkus Book Review

A Dominican woman in her mid-50s living in Washington Heights must find a job while facing the forces of gentrification, globalization, and the Great Recession. It's 2009, and while "El Obama" works to piece together a shattered economy, Cara Romero, at age 56, must find a job of her own. She's been unemployed for two years, since the factory where she worked for most of her life in the United States moved abroad. As part of a Senior Workforce Program in New York, she sits down with a city employee, a younger Dominican American woman, for 12 sessions during which they will work together to find Cara a job that matches her skills and interests. Throughout the sessions, with wit and warmth, author Cruz explores Cara's upbringing in the Dominican Republic, journey to the United States, estrangement from her only child, relationship to her sister and extended family, and commitment to her Washington Heights community. The potency of Cara's first-person voice as she speaks to the job counselor is undeniable, including some delicious multilingual turns of phrase. Cruz intersperses the 12 sessions with documents like rent notices from Cara's building and job application materials she must complete, including a "Career Skills Matcher," all of which work together to demonstrate both the power of bureaucracy to complicate a person's life and the ability of paperwork to tell one version of a person's story while often hiding what makes a life truly rich. A poignant portrait of one fallible, wise woman and a corner of one of New York's most vibrant immigrant communities. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Angie Cruz is the author of the novels Soledad, Let It Rain Coffee , and Dominicana , which was shortlisted for the Women's Prize and a Good Morning America Book Club pick. She is founder and editor in chief of Aster(ix) , a literary and arts journal, and is an associate professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.