Loca, Alejandro Heredia
Loca, Alejandro Heredia
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Loca

Author: Alejandro Heredia

Narrator: André Santana

Unabridged: 9 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/11/2025


Synopsis

Junot Diaz’s critically acclaimed collection Drown meets Janet Mock’s Emmy-winning series Pose, “in this remarkable debut…capturing the heartbreak of queer youth, a woman’s rebellion against the confines of motherhood, and, above all, the pain and power of friendship” (Adam Haslett, bestselling author of Imagine Me Gone).

It’s 1999, and best friends Sal and Charo are striving to hold on to their dreams in a New York determined to grind them down. Sal is a book-loving science nerd trying to grow beyond his dead-end job in a new city, but he’s held back by tragic memories from his past in Santo Domingo. Free-spirited Charo is surprised to find herself a mother at twenty-five, partnered with a controlling man, working at the same supermarket for years, her world shrunk to the very domesticity she thought she’d escaped in her old country. When Sal finds love at a gay club one night, both his and Charo’s worlds unexpectedly open up to a vibrant social circle that pushes them to reckon with what they owe to their own selves, pasts, futures, and, always, each other.

Loca follows one daring year in the lives of young people living at the edge of their own patience and desires. With expansive grace, it reveals both the grueling conditions that force people to migrate and the possibility of friendship as home when family, nations, and identity groups fall short.

About Alejandro Heredia

Alejandro Heredia is a writer from the Bronx. He has received fellowships from LAMBDA Literary, Dominican Studies Institute, UNLV’s Black Mountain Institute, and elsewhere. He received an MFA in fiction from Hunter College. Loca is his debut novel. 


Reviews

Goodreads review by Yari on February 14, 2025

I am a sucker for a great story set in NYC. Growing up as a Latina in the city at this time (I was in my 20s) in 1999, I am very familiar with the diaspora of Latinos at the time and in this place. Although, I am Puerto Rican, I am especially familiar with the Dominican diaspora having attended a hi......more

Goodreads review by Johnathan on November 02, 2024

In LOCA, we follow protagonists Sal and Charo through time as they navigate relationships, abandonment, and a desire for belonging. Refreshingly non-linear and so deliberate at the sentence level! Heredia writes each character with a rigorous degree of nuance, they are: resilient, flawed, brave, sel......more

Goodreads review by The Bookish Elf on February 17, 2025

In his spellbinding debut novel "Loca," Alejandro Heredia crafts an intricate narrative that weaves together themes of identity, migration, trauma, and the transformative power of friendship. Set against the backdrop of late 1990s New York City and Santo Domingo, the story follows two Afro-Caribbean......more

Goodreads review by SVL on April 05, 2025

I’ve read quite a few books about the diasporic immigrant experience and would say this falls about in the middle. It didn’t wow me but I did enjoy the complicated characters and the author’s focus on the intersection of multiple identities (queer, Black, Spanish, etc). I did not enjoy how the writi......more

Goodreads review by Mary on March 03, 2025

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC. Loca follows best friends Sal and Charo as they pursue their dreams in New York City. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I struggled at first with the way the book struck such an odd balance between Sal and Charo, with the narrative more S......more