4.5 stars

This was a brilliantly crafted collection. They are stories that were strongly themed and tied together, by location, by the Indigenous and Latinx women who populated each story, and by the themes of things that bind these women and these communities together. Still, each story felt distinct and almost all of them felt full. There were times that Farjardo-Anstine built you up to the height of an emotion and left you there, but it only increased the haunting feeling of her collection.

I had to read this slowly, and I think the reason I docked 0.5 star was personal-- this was tough to read. Many of the stories were about grief, loss, abandonment, and the struggle of these women to live and survive in a system that is built against them. There is so much inheritance here, too. It really speaks to how difficult it is to break patterns of poverty and abuse. Most of the time, it felt to me that the stories were more about fully capturing a moment, a present informed by legacies, with no real look at hope in the future. This isn't a critique against want Farjardo-Anstine did, just a reason why I had to take breaks in between stories.

Tomi was hands down my favorite story, perhaps because it did have that spark of hope. I just also loved the main character and her connection to her nephew.

If you enjoy short story collections, I would highly recommend this one. I would cautiously recommend it to people who don't typically read short stories, especially if they are looking for stories about Lantinx identities.