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"There is more life packed on each page of Ordinary Girls than some lives hold in a lifetime." - Julia Alvarez Ordinary Girls is a fierce, beautiful, and unflinching memoir from a wildly talented debut author. While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Jaquira Daz found herself caught between extremes: as her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was surrounded by the love of her friends; as she longed for a family and home, she found instead a life upended by violence. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico's history of colonialism, every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Daz triumphantly maps a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be. With a story reminiscent of Tara Westover's Educated, Roxane Gay's Hunger, and Terese Marie Mailhot's Heart Berries, Jaquira Daz delivers a memoir that reads as electrically as a novel.



About the Author

Jaquira Díaz

Jaquira Diaz was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Miami. She is the author of Ordinary Girls: A Memoir, winner of a Whiting Award, a Florida Book Awards Gold Medal, and a Lambda Literary Awards finalist. Ordinary Girls was a Summer/Fall 2019 Indies Introduce Selection, a Fall 2019 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Notable Selection, a November 2019 Indie Next Pick, and a Library Reads October pick. She splits her time between Montréal and Miami Beach, with her partner, the writer Lars Horn.



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