"Far from the cholos and maids of a cliché Latino Los Angeles, these beautiful Amado women dine at chichi hotels and restaurants, carry plush designer bags, and steer new cars into suburbias. But Zamorano doesn't leave it at that—because even an American dream-fulfilled life is still full of real life, and what alone endures is family." — Dagoberto Gilb, author of Before the End, After the Beginning
"What's it like reading Zamorano's debut novel? Take three wildly divergent sisters, a worrying mother, and an electrifying city. Blend in the heartache of marriage and an arsenal of secrets. Serve to all your comadres with a jalapeño twist." — Stephanie Elizondo Griest, author of Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines
"Désirée Zamorano's first novel explores a world of Latinas that belongs to her alone. Such originality predicts a notable career in the world of fiction. The author's voice is true, and her stories feel real." — Mark Childress, author of Crazy in Alabama and Georgia Bottoms
"Focuses on upwardly mobile, middle-class Latinas in contemporary Southern California. Her protagonists — a matriarch and her three adult daughters — are successful women, though not without the troubles many, regardless of economic status, encounter: failed marriages, family pressure to play an "appropriate" role, self-doubt in one's parenting decisions. An entertaining and important novel, The Amado Women offers a valid, realistic depiction of a group of Latinas largely ignored in US literature." — Los Angeles Times
"Provocative.... Zamorano weaves in lighter moments with meditations on the women's emotional and cultural inheritances." — Booklist
"The Amado women represent a mixture of traditional and modern values, and each defines her life by a set of complex rules. ... Zamorano provides a compassionate portrait of a family pushing difficulties aside to help each other." — Kirkus Reviews
"A fast-paced story with lots of family drama and strong characters who overcome bad relationships and the other adversities life hands them." — Library Journal
"A finely rendered story of a multigenerational Latina family overcoming individual setbacks and tragedies." — Shelf Awareness
2014-07-02
A Latino mother and her growndaughters demonstrate the meaning of family loyalty in Zamorano's debut.The Amado women represent a mixture of traditionaland modern values, and each defines her life by a set of complex rules. Mercyhas spent years church-hopping in an attempt to seek answers to questions offaith rising from a long-buried childhood incident. Once married to a drunkenphilanderer, she shrugged aside hardship to pursue her life's calling—teaching—and waited until her daughters were grown before leaving their father. Oldestdaughter Celeste is a successful investment manager whose early pregnancy andsubsequent marriage interrupted the promise of acceptance at any number of IvyLeague colleges. Now divorced, she lives in self-imposed exile in a differentCalifornia city from her family, and she and her youngest sister, Nataly, areestranged. Nataly suffers from issues of abandonment and supports herself as awaitress to fund her true calling, art, and refuses to talk to her sister.Given the history of her father's infidelity, she's alarmed to find herselfattracted to an older married man. Middle daughter Sylvia appears to be themost settled of the siblings. From the exterior, life with her up-and-cominghusband and two young daughters looks perfect. But Jack's a self-centeredabuser with little conscience whose actions threaten to further harm his wifeand girls. When a family emergency looms, the Amado women attempt to skirttheir personal differences to provide assistance, but those barriers aren'tcompletely removed until an even larger crisis occurs.Zamorano provides a compassionateportrait of a family pushing difficulties aside to help each other; however,despite the author's attempt to engage readers with multiple plotcomplications, the book is curiously flat.
