Story written by CLAS Fall 2026 intern Sofia Boyd. Sofia is majoring in International Studies and specializing in International Relations & Diplomacy, with a double minor in Linguistics and Spanish.

Looking for a new book? Center of Latin American Studies faculty and staff recommend the best

books they read this summer. From graphic novels to memoirs, there is something for everyone.

Dive in!

Halfway to Somewhere by José Pimienta

Recommended by Dr. Fernanda Dìaz-Basteris

“I’m an avid comic reader and a Latinx comics collector. This summer I read many graphic novels, but my favorite was Halfway to Somewhere by José Pimienta. Halfway to Somewhere portrays a beautiful narrative of migration, belonging, and gender identity. The family’s move from Mexicali to Kansas resonates with many Latinx diasporic experiences of leaving vibrant urban communities for smaller U.S. towns with smaller Latinx populations, unfamiliar culturallandscapes, and harsh winters. The graphic novel also highlights academic migration through Ave’s mother, who moves to Kansas for a faculty position in Linguistics, while Ave, a queer and nonbinary protagonist, finds community among friends with their own migration stories. Together, these experiences represent the complex ways Latinx families and queer and nonbinary young people negotiate identity, belonging, and what it means to make a new place home.”

Queer Relajo: Feeling the Nighscapes of Mexicanidad by David Tenorio

Recommended by Dr. Irvin Manuel Gonzalez

“The book highlights the conundrums of queer world building and making in Mexico City. It asks us to grapple with and celebrate how we find queer gestures and feelings of resistance between the neon walls of privatized economies. I especially enjoyed Tenorio’s use of auto ethnographic vignettes. The storytelling brings a beautiful touch to the book.”

All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert

Recommended by Dr. Anna Babel

“Gilbert is really a fantastic writer and I think she’s tremendously underrated as a stylist. This is a gut-wrenchingly honest memoir of her love for her partner Rayya Elias and their mutual descent into cancer, codependency, addition, abuse and ultimately Rayya’s death. It’s a lot darker than Eat, Pray Love; you really feel like you go allll the way down with the two of them.”

An Exaltation of Larks by Suanne Laqueur

Recommended by Dr. Anna Babel

“An Exaltation of Larks is a kind of a crazy love triangle book that keeps expanding into tetrahedron status and follows two generations of lovers, friends and family across time and space. Lots of trauma, violence, and emotional reckoning and you spend the whole book rooting for characters to do one thing or another that they usually don’t do. I like how it shows the long-term repercussions of the historical and personal events that befall us across our lifetimes.”

Central American Counterpoetics: Diaspora and Rememory by Karina Alma

Recommended by Dr. Carlos Rivas

“One of my favorite books I read this summer was Karina Alma’s Central American Counterpoetics: Diaspora and Rememory. Alma develops the concepts of “counterpoetics” and “rememory” as ways of thinking about how Central Americans are using art, literature, music, popular culture, and other creative practices to contest established histories and preserve forms of collective memory. I especially appreciated the book’s expansive approach to what counts as cultural production and its attention to the ways creativity can become a form of resistance, healing, and decolonization. As someone interested in Central American art and visual culture, I found Alma’s insistence that cultural production is not simply a reflection of political history but a means of actively remaking memory, community, and possible futures particularly compelling. It is an exciting and important contribution to the growing field of Central American Studies.”