Liliana's Invincible Summer Audiobook By Cristina Rivera Garza cover art

Liliana's Invincible Summer

A Sister's Search for Justice

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

Liliana's Invincible Summer

By: Cristina Rivera Garza
Narrated by: Victoria Villarreal
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $18.00

Buy for $18.00

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “A searing account of grief and the quest to bring her sister’s murderer to justice years after the fact” (The Boston Globe), from “one of Mexico’s greatest living writers” (Jonathan Lethem).

“Part memoir, part true-crime story, Garza’s chronicle is both personal and political.”—The Washington Post

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, Time, Chicago Public Library, She Reads, Electric Lit

October 18, 2019. Cristina Rivera Garza travels from her home in Texas to Mexico City, in search of an old, unresolved criminal file. “My name is Cristina Rivera Garza,” she writes in her request to the attorney general, “and I am writing to you as a relative of Liliana Rivera Garza, who was murdered on July 16, 1990.” It’s been twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine years, three months, and two days since Liliana was murdered by an abusive ex-boyfriend. Inspired by feminist movements across the world and enraged by the global epidemic of femicide and intimate partner violence, Cristina embarks on a path toward justice. Liliana’s Invincible Summer is the account—and the outcome—of that quest.

In luminous, poetic prose, Rivera Garza tells a singular yet universally resonant story: Liliana is a spirited, wondrously hopeful young woman who tried to survive in a world of increasingly normalized gendered violence. Rivera Garza traces her sister’s history, depicting everything from Liliana’s early romance with a handsome but possessive and short-tempered man to that exhilarating final summer of 1990 when she loved, thought, and traveled more widely and freely than she ever had before.

Using her skills as an acclaimed scholar, novelist, and poet, Rivera Garza collected and curated evidence—handwritten letters, police reports, school notebooks, interviews with Liliana’s loved ones—to document her sister’s life. Through this remarkable and genre-defying memoir, she confronts the trauma of losing her sister and examines how this tragedy continues to shape who she is—and what she fights for—today.

©2023 Cristina Rivera Garza (P)2023 Random House Audio
Gender Studies Grief & Loss Personal Development Relationships Social Sciences Women Inspiring Heartfelt

Listeners also enjoyed...

Fire Weather Audiobook By John Vaillant cover art
Fire Weather By: John Vaillant
The End of Drum-Time Audiobook By Hanna Pylväinen cover art
The End of Drum-Time By: Hanna Pylväinen
Blackouts Audiobook By Justin Torres cover art
Blackouts By: Justin Torres
A Man of Two Faces Audiobook By Viet Thanh Nguyen cover art
A Man of Two Faces By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
Bright Young Women Audiobook By Jessica Knoll cover art
Bright Young Women By: Jessica Knoll
We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I Audiobook By Raja Shehadeh cover art
We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I By: Raja Shehadeh
We Were Once a Family Audiobook By Roxanna Asgarian cover art
We Were Once a Family By: Roxanna Asgarian
Hello Beautiful Audiobook By Ann Napolitano cover art
Hello Beautiful By: Ann Napolitano
So Late in the Day Audiobook By Claire Keegan cover art
So Late in the Day By: Claire Keegan
The Museum of Failures Audiobook By Thrity Umrigar cover art
The Museum of Failures By: Thrity Umrigar
Chain Gang All Stars Audiobook By Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah cover art
Chain Gang All Stars By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
I Saw Death Coming Audiobook By Kidada E. Williams cover art
I Saw Death Coming By: Kidada E. Williams
Waiting to Be Arrested at Night Audiobook By Tahir Hamut Izgil, Joshua L. Freeman - introduction translator cover art
Waiting to Be Arrested at Night By: Tahir Hamut Izgil, and others
My Brilliant Friend Audiobook By Elena Ferrante cover art
My Brilliant Friend By: Elena Ferrante
When Crack Was King Audiobook By Donovan X. Ramsey cover art
When Crack Was King By: Donovan X. Ramsey
House of Sticks Audiobook By Ly Tran cover art
House of Sticks By: Ly Tran
Crossroads Audiobook By Jonathan Franzen cover art
Crossroads By: Jonathan Franzen
Women We Buried, Women We Burned Audiobook By Rachel Louise Snyder cover art
Women We Buried, Women We Burned By: Rachel Louise Snyder
The Children's Bach Audiobook By Helen Garner cover art
The Children's Bach By: Helen Garner
Notes on a Silencing Audiobook By Lacy Crawford cover art
Notes on a Silencing By: Lacy Crawford

Critic reviews

"Cristina Rivera Garza wanted to shed light on the life of her sister, killed 30 years ago. Her book, part of a larger call for justice by women in Mexico, helped locate the suspect. . . . [Liliana's Invincible Summer] is the record of a woman who, against the odds, refuses to be forgotten.”The New York Times

“Not everything can be put into words, especially grief and rage, no matter how precise and skilled the writing is. The beauty of this book is that it reaches for that truth regardless, and in doing so, Liliana becomes indelible. She is so fully realized that by the end, the reader is also mourning. I will be thinking of Liliana for a very long time, perhaps forever.”The Washington Post

“Women across the world are killed at shocking rates by men, usually partners or former ones. . . . Anger at this lack of accountability seethes through Ms. Rivera Garza’s book. Her main goal, however, is not abstract analysis of femicide but to chronicle a life lost to it. . . . Absorbing and poetic.”—The Economist

People who viewed this also viewed...

Death Takes Me Audiobook By Cristina Rivera Garza, Robin Myers - translator, Sarah Booker - translator cover art
Death Takes Me By: Cristina Rivera Garza, and others
The Fact of a Body Audiobook By Alex Marzano-Lesnevich cover art
The Fact of a Body By: Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
Black Klansman Audiobook By Ron Stallworth cover art
Black Klansman By: Ron Stallworth
Night Watch Audiobook By Jayne Anne Phillips cover art
Night Watch By: Jayne Anne Phillips
When Things Are Alive They Hum Audiobook By Hannah Bent cover art
When Things Are Alive They Hum By: Hannah Bent
Grieving Audiobook By Cristina Rivera Garza, Sarah Booker - translator cover art
Grieving By: Cristina Rivera Garza, and others
Whiskey Tender Audiobook By Deborah Taffa cover art
Whiskey Tender By: Deborah Taffa
Taiwan Travelogue Audiobook By Yang Shuang-Zi, Lin King - translator cover art
Taiwan Travelogue By: Yang Shuang-Zi, and others
Horizontal Vertigo Audiobook By Juan Villoro, Alfred MacAdam - translator cover art
Horizontal Vertigo By: Juan Villoro, and others
Death of Innocence Audiobook By Mamie Till-Mobley, Christopher Benson cover art
Death of Innocence By: Mamie Till-Mobley, and others
March Audiobook By Geraldine Brooks cover art
March By: Geraldine Brooks
Pedro Páramo Audiobook By Juan Rulfo cover art
Pedro Páramo By: Juan Rulfo
We Keep the Dead Close Audiobook By Becky Cooper cover art
We Keep the Dead Close By: Becky Cooper
Memorial Drive Audiobook By Natasha Trethewey cover art
Memorial Drive By: Natasha Trethewey
The Gathering Audiobook By Anne Enright cover art
The Gathering By: Anne Enright
So Big Audiobook By Edna Ferber cover art
So Big By: Edna Ferber
Small Rain Audiobook By Garth Greenwell cover art
Small Rain By: Garth Greenwell
The Hacienda Audiobook By Isabel Cañas cover art
The Hacienda By: Isabel Cañas
Beautiful Writing • Powerful Storytelling • Meticulous Research • Poignant Narrative • Artistic Expression
Highly rated for:
Most relevant  
Through the process of healing, Cristina shares her sister with us. Not only do we learn who she was, what made her unique and ultimately what lead to her death, but we learn about the interesting dynamic they shared as sisters.

I know I will find myself reading this story again and again.

Simply Beautiful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This is a difficult book to listen to because you know from the start that there is no happy ending.

Truth is Hard

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Rivera Garza’s writing tenderly weaves in meticulous research, family and friend narratives, and her own earnest reflections on her sister’s life and femicide. It’s as much a loving portraiture for her sister’s full humanity and complexity, as it is an unapologetic investigation into femicide in Mexico. I highly recommend this book!

Pulitzer Prize winner for a reason!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The way the author wrote the story is superb. It’s creative, artistic and interesting. This book is pure literary work. The way she writes about her sister’s life and her gruesome tragedy is simply astonishing.

A True Story Artistically Written

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This book combines personal narratives, historical analysis, and global data to uncover the cultural, political, and societal structures that enable femicide. The narrator’s powerful storytelling sheds light on her sister’s story and others that are often silenced, leaving readers both enraged and empowered to demand change. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand and combat gender-based violence.

A deeply unsettling yet vital read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

sometimes I could not track who was narrating; it made the story confusing. the writing is beautiful, and the narration is good.

liliannas love, and the injustice/mysogeny in the Mexican culture

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Es algo tan cotidiano que a veces suele normalizarse escuchar estos casos, Involucrarte emocionalmente con la historia te resetea y vuelves a impactarte y a reconocer lo realmente horrible que es la situación y también todas la demás que poco a poco has ido normalizando. La autora refiere que es una historia buscando justicia, pero al final también es una historia de reconexión.

Una historia fuerte.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I was afraid this narrative would be hard to follow in audiobook, but was very pleasantly surprised. The writing flows and the readers voice kept me listening. The themes are profound and at times not easy to "live" in, yet the thoughts, reflections, and particularly the descriptive language kept me hooked through the end. This book will certainly make you think about gender, coming of age, and the violence that goes unnoticed and persists in our world. Tough topics treated with amazing artistry that is hauntingly beautiful.

Incredible weaving of texts and perspectives to tell a compelling story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

My only negative comment is the sad subject of the book. The author did a great job of providing a variety of points of view.

I loved the language and style of writing. The narration was perfect.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

the reader lacked emotion. it felt like a reading and not like a story. I had listen hard to catch the poetry of each chapter, but oh, it was there!

the use of language flow, and gut reaching power of love.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews