¡Ándale, Prieta!

Review
By Kirkus

A tribute to the author’s fierce grandmother blossoms into a family saga brimming with heartache and love.

In the first part, Ramírez introduces readers to the resilient women who loomed large in her childhood in El Paso, Texas: her maternal great-grandmother, Máma Lupe; her hardworking mother, Leticia; and, above all, her fiery maternal grandmother, Ita. The fraught, tense relationship between Máma Lupe and Ita—highlighted in a spectacular chapter devoted to a day at church—exemplifies the knotty bonds that tie mother to daughter, a recurring theme. Throughout the text, Ramírez interweaves anecdotes of childhood nights spent in bars with Ita (tamer than it sounds); Ita’s poignant nightly rituals; details about Leticia’s work for Customs at the border separating El Paso and Juárez, filling the role of “the brown gatekeeper to other brown people.” The clear star of the book is Ita, an unforgettable, larger-than-life character. In one striking chapter, the author tells the stories behind the many scars that mark Ita’s body, a literal road map of the older woman’s life. Meanwhile, the men in young Ramírez’s life—an absent father, an overindulged uncle, a couple of boyfriends—make appearances as secondary characters, distant shadows at times. In the second part—in which the author moves into adolescence and young adulthood—Ita and Leticia fade into the background, and their absences dull the crackling vitality of the first half. However, it’s in the second half of the book that Ramírez crucially explores her waning relationship with her father. Her attempts over the years to reconnect—often half-hearted but always sincere—culminate in a final effort that seals their differences. Using conversational prose full of vivid imagery, the author successfully explores the many dimensions of her identity as a Mexican American woman.

A promising debut, gripping in its honesty.