THE LATINA BOOK CLUB

      Happy New Year!   Every Wednesday The Latina Book Club features an excerpt from an exciting new book. This week we are highlighting  A MONSTER CALLS by Patrick Ness, which has been turned into a movie directed by the Spanish director J.A. Bayona.   We'd like to thank publisher Candlewick Press for copies of the book for our readers. The movie opens on Three Kings Day, January 6, nationwide.  Happy Reading. Happy Viewing. EXCERPT A MONSTER CALLS By Patrick Ness Candlewick Press The monster showed up just after midnight.  As they do. Conor was awake when it came.  He’d had a nightmare. Well, not a nightmare. The nightmare. The one he’d been having a lot lately. The one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming. The one with the hands slipping from his grasp, no matter how hard he tried to hold on. The one that always ended with –  “Go away,” Conor whispered into the darkness ...

    THE VOTING BOOTH AFTER DARK: Despicable. Embarrassing. Repulsive. By Vanessa Libertad Garcia Fiat Libertad http://www.vanessalibertadgarcia.com/ “Raise your white flags, dirty as they may be.” THE VOTING BOOTH AFTER DARK is a short volume of poetry and essays that follow a group of gay and lesbian Latino club kids in Los Angeles during the course of the 2008 presidential elections. As Obama moves into the White House and Bush moves out, the characters too find themselves on the “Eve of Change.” Whereas, before the elections, they—like most of the country—find themselves full of angst, hopelessness, just like “another ungrateful useless American sitting on the edge of a cliff.” But that “Anguish” is followed by a little hope: “I yearn, I thirst, I crave not to throw all my hard won years away.” And, what begins as dead end days, full of despair, end in acceptance, compassion and trust. With a 40-ounce or a bottle of Barcardi on hand, these 20-somethings a...