Book Review: HOMBRECITO

Melis Noah Amber

Book cover of hombrecito. A large, blurry bird in center. On top is a smaller, in focus bird. Both have wings spread and are aflight.

Thank you to Riverhead/NetGalley for a copy of Hombrecity in exchange for an honest review.

Summary

… Santiago Jose Sanchez plunges us into the heart of one boy’s life. His mother takes him and his brother from Colombia to America, leaving their absent father behind but essentially disappearing herself once they get to Miami.

In America, his mother works as a waitress when she was once a doctor. The boy embraces his queer identity as wholeheartedly as he embraces his new home, but not without a sense of loss. As he grows, his relationship with his mother becomes fraught, tangled, a love so intense that it borders on vivid pain but is also the axis around which his every decision revolves. She may have once forgotten him, disappeared, but she is always on his mind.

He moves to New York, ducking in and out of bed with different men as he seeks out something, someone, to make him whole again. When his mother invites him to visit family in Colombia with her, he returns to the country as a young man, trying to find peace with his father, with his homeland, with who he’s become since he left, and with who his mother is: finally we come to know her and her secrets, her complex ambivalence and fierce love.

A Tough Read

Santiago Jose Sanchez Hombrecito features a protagonist by the same name. That said, we cannot know much of book-Santiago’s life mirrors Sanchez’s life. It’s never great to assume. 

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Santiago is a profoundly unreliable narrator in that he never seems to realize how much damage his life choices (and the things that happen to him) cause. Some of these events are heartbreaking. Even though Santiago survives, the ghosts and shadows of his past haunt him. Is it realistic? Absolutely. Is it “fun” to read? Not really. Does that mean it’s not worth reading? Of course not. 

The Nonbinary of It All

The nonbinary representation in this book is a bit muddled. Santiago (the character) identifies as nonbinary and gay and uses he/him pronoun. To be clear, these latter two identifications are not confusing or issues at all. 

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What confused me is that everyone around Santiago seems to strongly identify him as a man, an hombrecito, even after he’s come out as nonbinary. And Santiago doesn’t seem to have a problem with this. If Santiago were a real person, that would be his prerogative. But, in fiction, I would have liked even one line exploring why this does or does not bother him. 

The way that media and art interact with identity matters. And I know that sucks for artists who just want to tell their stories, but I don’t think we’re there yet. 

Should You Read It?

Hombrecito is poetic, well-written and quite beautiful. It’s also a tough pill to swallow. As the child of an immigrant to the US and someone who’s been an immigrant to another country, I related hard. As a queer person, I related hard. I imagine Latine people would glean even more from this novel.

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But you don’t need to be any of those things to read this book. One word of caution: though Santiago is a teenager for most of it, this is pretty squarely adult fiction.

Hombrecito is out on June 25, 2024. Pick up a copy at your local indie bookstore or library. 📚🇨🇴🏳️‍🌈

Content warnings: Sexual assault of a minor (on page), drug use, death

https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/new-book-releases-june-25-2024/

Melis Noah Amber
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