There’s nothing ordinary about Jaquira Díaz’s debut memoir. And perhaps most importantly, Ordinary Girls is a reminder to keep surviving in whatever way we know how, so that we can one day write ourselves out of despair and into the people we could be-without shame. Ordinary Girls is a love letter to the girls who have been stigmatized and silenced and hurt and left behind, to those of us whose families are both a source of incredible joy and immense pain, to all of us who contemplated dying more times than we could count and came back up for air at the last possible second. Writing these girls into literature as their complete selves is an act of love. The most captivating piece of this memoir is Díaz’s refusal to let herself and her girls be shamed for surviving despite the odds. As I read how beautifully Díaz holds the multiple coinciding truths of her family, friends, and even people who hurt and wronged her, my own fears dissipate slightly. Because of the shame that keeps us silent and afraid, it’s uncommon to see Latinx writers grapple with the complexity of our loved ones in public. For the girls they were, for the girl I was, for girls everywhere who are just like we used to be. It is, above all, a monument to Díaz’s girls. It is an unflinching yet compassionate dissection of the pain, love, and violence that cast Díaz’s life in equal parts light and shadow.

It is an awe-inspiring, middle-finger-waving rejection of the cult and culture of shame that pervades Latinx communities. Jaquira Díaz’s Ordinary Girls is more than a memoir.

Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Díaz