Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xóchitl González

Amy  

fiction, fantasy

Anita de Monte Laughs Last is told alternatingly from three viewpoints: Cuban American artist Anita in the 1970s and 1980s, her famous artist husband, Jack, and a Puerto Rican college student in the 1990s named Raquel who is studying Jack as the subject of her college thesis. Anita and Jack had a very passionate, rocky relationship in which neither treated the other one particularly well. Jack was cruel to his wife by continuing to have affairs and belittling her art. She had grown up with nothing and been charmed by his ability to take care of her financially and, hopefully, professionally. However, neither of them seemed to actually put their relationship first and, on one night of high emotion, tragedy strikes. Raquel, similar to Anita, grew up at a financial disadvantage and was drawn to the beautiful, wealthy Nick, an artist on campus who seemed to be on a rising trajectory for stardom. She was smart enough to see some flaws in him but she was also inexperienced in romantic relationships and blinded by love.

This novel sucked me right in from the first chapter. The drama! The angst! The art! The women were so flawed yet hopeful. Their honesty drew me in, their dreams kept me wanting to know how life would pan out for them, and their mistakes kept me rivetted to find out how much harm those mistakes would bring in the future. Would Jack's spin job keep Anita out of the public consciousness?

I was so infuriated on behalf of Anita and Raquel at times. True, neither were perfect and Anita seemed like she should have known better much of the time. But both women had goals and dreams and were working hard to meet them. They had paths before them.

For Anita, full of fire and energy, her lack of stable, loving parents created a hole that she did not know how to fill and she made some poor choices. Raquel, climbing her way to success through hard work and guts is still too young and inexperienced to realize that the boy she loves is only really in love with the idea of her. And Jack is simply a prick—a white man who feels the world revolves around him and takes no responsibility for anything.

The reader can see what these characters cannot—that they’re all heading for trouble. But we can’t miss out on witnessing the train wrecks. The title also kept me motivated to find out exactly how Anita laughed last and had me hoping Raquel would make key discoveries while also discovering herself. Little did I know that there was fantasy included in the latter part of the story which was as satisfying as it was unexpected.

I hadn’t realized until I finished that I’ve read another book by Xóchitl González which I had also enjoyed--Olga Dies Dreaming. González builds lovable, complicated characters and compelling storylines. I’ll look forward to reading her next one.

The audiobook narrators are all fabulous voice actors! In fact, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have enjoyed this novel as much without their amazing acting. Jessica Pimentel voiced Anita, Jonathan Gregg voiced Jack, and Stacy Gonzalez was Raquel. Even though none of them had particularly large vocal repertoires, their acting was some of the best I’ve heard. I’ll give them a solid A for doing a wonderful job with this material.