Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González

Amy  

fiction

Olga is self-made, strong, smart, determined, supportive of her loved ones, and generally seemingly content with life.  She seems to have everything she wants—a successful catering business with public recognition, a sex life that satisfies her, a loving brother of whom she is very proud, and professional challenges that allow her to use her creative mind. She is of Puerto Rican descent and her brother, Prieto, is a US Congressman.  However, Olga and her brother are not without damage caused by their parents. Their mother left them in the care of their grandmother when Olga and Prieto were teenagers so that she could follow her own dreams in the fight for Puerto Rican independence.  Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González  is mostly Olga’s story but is told from the viewpoints of her brother, one of Olga’s boyfriends, and the letters her mother sent throughout the years.

After deciding I really liked Olga, I spent the rest of the novel wondering when/how she was going to die, because of the title, and was dreading it.  She was young and hopeful with so much to look forward to. She had persevered through much and come out seemingly satisfied.

The pacing of the story was perfect and I was never bored or tired of listening to the audiobook. I was forced to face my horror with American colonialism.  It also disheartened me to learn how easily men with significant wealth are able to buy whatever/whomever they want so that they can keep building their own wealth without regard to how that goal harms others.  I’m not against wealth. I’m against taking ridiculous advantage of that wealth to, literally, negatively change the lives of innocent, normal people while they simply seek to increase their power, control, and bank accounts. It’s truly sickening.  I’ve known about this in the abstract most of my life but only in the last decade have I paid enough attention to politics to learn of specific situations, and the resulting harm that has been done.  Governments are no longer so much by the people and for the people but, rather, by the rich and for the rich.  This novel just cemented my disgust about those who seek to conquer and the hatred that sadly still exists toward people of color.

The narrators were awesome.  It took me a while to realize that the narrator voicing Olga’s mother was different than Olga’s narrator. I would have preferred a greater differentiation of vocal tone since the production bothered to have separate narrators.  The narrators were all terrific. The most significant role was Inés del Castillo. She was a terrific voice actress with a variety of voices and vocal tones.  Unfortunately, she does not pronounce the “t” sound when a vowel sound comes after it in words like “button” and “important”.  This is known as t-glottalization and bugs me. Also, she did not use any hint of a Puerto Rican accent unless she was using Spanish words, whereas the narrator voicing her brother did speak with a slight accent.  I would have believed either situation but not a difference from two members of the same family.  This is a production flaw so I won’t hold it against either of the narrators but it needs to be said. Prieto was voiced by Armando Riesco and Olga’s mother was voiced by Almarie Guerra.  They were both very good actors--Riesco having the meatier role with opportunities to use his vocal repertoire. I will give them all an A-.