Showing results by narrator "Marisol Ramirez" in All Categories

In 1958, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita was published in the United States to immediate controversy and best-sellerdom. More than 60 years later, this phenomenal novel generates as much buzz as it did when originally published. Central to countless issues at the forefront of our national discourse - art and politics, race and whiteness, gender and power, sexual trauma - Lolita lives on, in an afterlife as blinding as a supernova.

Cuba, 1936: When Estelita Rodriguez sings in a hazy Havana nightclub for the very first time, she is nine years old. From then on, that spotlight of adoration - from Havana to New York’s Copacabana and then Hollywood - becomes the one true accomplishment no one can take from her. Not the 1933 Cuban Revolution that drove her family into poverty. Not the revolving door of husbands or the fickle world of film.

Valentina “Vale” Castillo-Green’s life revolves around soccer. Her friends, her future, and her father’s intense expectations are all wrapped up in the beautiful game. But after she incites a fight during playoffs with her long-time rival, Leticia Ortiz, everything she’s been working toward seems to disappear. Embarrassed and desperate to be anywhere but home, Vale escapes to her beloved childhood soccer camp for a summer of relaxation and redemption…only to find out that she and the endlessly aggravating Leticia will be co-captaining a team that could play in front of college scouts.

In this new novel from the author of The Dressmaker’s Dowry, two young women two generations apart discover the joy and heartbreak of following their dreams. Aspiring Hollywood actress Violet makes a shocking choice in 1940, and 70 years later, Mari sets out to discover what happened on that long ago summer. Santa Cruz, Summer 1940: When auburn-haired Violet Harcourt is crowned Miss California on the boardwalk of her hometown, she knows she is one step closer to her cherished dream: a Hollywood screen test.

Multiple times a day, in cities across the US and beyond, a simple yet powerful message is repeated by the well-meaning, the ignorant, and the bigoted: “don’t go”—avoid at all costs those Black and Brown disinvested neighborhoods that have become bywords for social disorder and urban decay. This book is a collection of intimate stories that uncover the hidden influence of both subtle and overt “don’t go” messages and the segregation they perpetuate in Chicago.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Rise of Nine by Pittacus Lore, read by Neil Kaplan, Devon Sorvari and Marisol Ramirez. Until I met John Smith, Number Four, I’d been on the run alone, hiding and fighting to stay alive. Together we are much more powerful. But it could only last so long before we had to separate to find the others... I went to Spain to find Seven, and I found even more, including a tenth member of the Garde who escaped from Lorien alive.

At night, Las Mal Criadas own these streets. Sixteen-year-old Nalah leads the fiercest all-girl crew in Mega City. That role brings with it violent throwdowns and access to the hottest "boydega" clubs, but Nala quickly grows weary of her questionable lifestyle. Her dream is to get off the streets and make a home in the exclusive Mega Towers, in which only a chosen few get to live. To make it to the Mega Towers, Nalah must prove her loyalty to the city's benevolent founder and cross the border in a search of the mysterious gang the Ashe Riders.

Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.

'We are the last defence.I've seen him on the news. Followed the stories about what happened to John Smith. To the world he's a mystery, but to me...he's one of us. Nine of us came here, but sometimes I wonder if time has changed us, if we all still believe in our mission. There are six of us left. We're hiding, blending in, avoiding contact with one another, but our Legacies are developing, and soon we'll be ready to fight....'

This astonishing memoir was hailed as an instant classic when first published in Colombia in 2012, nearly a decade after the death of its author, who was encouraged in her writing by Gabriel García Márquez. Comprised of letters written over the course of 30 years, and translated and introduced by acclaimed writer Daniel Alarcón, it describes in vivid, painterly detail the remarkable courage and limitless imagination of a young girl growing up with nothing.

Adam Soto, author of the debut novel This Weightless World, which Robin Sloan called “the social novel for the 21st century,” returns with Concerning Those Who Have Fallen Asleep. The stories in Concerning Those Who Have Fallen Asleep, strange and unsettling, explore the quiet spaces where the living and the dead alike haunt one another through their choices, dreams, and institutions.

Danielle and Wes have been best friends since college, so when Wes needs a date for his sister's wedding and Dani needs a partner for her company's retreat, they devise the perfect plan: a fake engagement to get through both events unscathed.

Sixteen-year-old Jules Maroni’s dream is to follow in her father’s footsteps as a high-wire walker. When her family is offered a prestigious role in the new Cirque American, it seems that Jules and the Amazing Maronis will finally get the spotlight they deserve. But the presence of the Flying Garcias may derail her plans. For decades, the two rival families have avoided each other as sworn enemies.

How does witnessing a crime change a person? This powerful collection of stories by a star-studded roster of contributors examines this very question.

Maddie Diaz never should have taken that shortcut through the park. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have seen two gang members attacking a homeless man. Now, as the only witness, Maddie knows there's a target on her back. But her courage has also caught the attention of Lobo, the mysterious leader of a rival gang, who promises to protect her. Lobo might be out for his own revenge, but Maddie knows she can trust him.

Ranging in age from six to 40, 38 sons and daughters of lesbians offer brief essays that could be valuable to like offspring, as well as to relatives and friends trying to understand the problems such children face. Homophobia, visited upon the children as well as their mothers, is the most commonly cited concern; some younger contributors feel isolated from their peers, and a couple of boys endure rejection from radical lesbian acquaintances.

I thought things would change when I found the others. We would stop running. We would fight the Mogadorians. And we would win. But I was wrong. Even though we have come together, we barely escaped from them with our lives. And now we're in hiding, figuring out our next move. The six of us are powerful - but not strong enough to take on their entire army. We haven't discovered the full extent of our Legacies. We haven't learned to work together. Time is running out, and there's only one thing we know for certain: We need to find Number Five before they do.

When Gabby Perez is almost drugged at a nightclub, she decides to take action. Teaming up with a mysterious stranger known as X, the two go after a gang who is drugging and kidnapping innocent girls off the Miami streets and forcing them into prostitution. As their search deepens, Gabby and X can't ignore their undeniable attraction to each other. Then Gabby discovers the truth about who X really is and the danger that surrounds him. Can their love survive the light of day?

The cabin lies deep in the woods, where the trees are so dense it's easy to miss. On the outside it might look like it's crumbling, crawling with weeds, but on the inside it's warm and cosy. A fire crackles in the fireplace. Dinner simmers on the stove. Maya once saw this cabin as an idyllic place, like a cottage from a fairy tale, but now she knows the danger that lurks beneath. The summer she visited the cabin was the summer her best friend Aubrey died. Now, another woman from Maya's hometown has died in the same strange, unexplained way.

In The Silver Women, Joan Flores-Villalobos argues that Black West Indian women made the Panama Canal construction possible by providing the indispensable everyday labor of social reproduction. West Indian women built a provisioning economy that fed, housed, and cared for the segregated Black West Indian labor force, in effect subsidizing the construction effort and the racial calculus that separated pay in silver for Black workers and gold for white Americans.