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Brother Brontë: A Novel
Two women fight to save their dystopian border town—and literature—in this gonzo near-future adventure.
The year is 2038, and the formerly bustling town of Three Rivers, Texas, is a surreal wasteland. Under the authoritarian thumb of its tech industrialist mayor, Pablo Henry Crick, the town has outlawed reading and forced most of the town’s mothers to work as indentured laborers at the Big Tex Fish Cannery, which poisons the atmosphere and lines Crick’s pockets.
Scraping by in this godforsaken landscape are best friends Prosperina and Neftalí—the latter of whom, one of the town’s last literate citizens, hides and reads the books of the mysterious renegade author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, whose last novel, Brother Brontë, is finally in Neftalí’s possession. But after a series of increasingly violent atrocities committed by Crick’s forces, Neftalí and Prosperina, with the help of a wounded bengal tigress, three scheming triplets, and an underground network of rebel tías, rise up to reclaim their city—and in the process, unlock Rivas’s connection to Three Rivers itself.
An adventure that only the acclaimed Fernando A. Flores could dream up, Brother Brontë is a mordant, gonzo romp through a ruined world that, in its dysfunction, tyranny, and disparity, nonetheless feels uncannily like our own. With his most ambitious book yet, Flores once again bends what fiction can do, in the process crafting a moving and unforgettable story of perseverance.
The year is 2038, and the formerly bustling town of Three Rivers, Texas, is a surreal wasteland. Under the authoritarian thumb of its tech industrialist mayor, Pablo Henry Crick, the town has outlawed reading and forced most of the town’s mothers to work as indentured laborers at the Big Tex Fish Cannery, which poisons the atmosphere and lines Crick’s pockets.
Scraping by in this godforsaken landscape are best friends Prosperina and Neftalí—the latter of whom, one of the town’s last literate citizens, hides and reads the books of the mysterious renegade author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, whose last novel, Brother Brontë, is finally in Neftalí’s possession. But after a series of increasingly violent atrocities committed by Crick’s forces, Neftalí and Prosperina, with the help of a wounded bengal tigress, three scheming triplets, and an underground network of rebel tías, rise up to reclaim their city—and in the process, unlock Rivas’s connection to Three Rivers itself.
An adventure that only the acclaimed Fernando A. Flores could dream up, Brother Brontë is a mordant, gonzo romp through a ruined world that, in its dysfunction, tyranny, and disparity, nonetheless feels uncannily like our own. With his most ambitious book yet, Flores once again bends what fiction can do, in the process crafting a moving and unforgettable story of perseverance.
353 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 11, 2025
154 people are currently reading
10823 people want to read
About the author
Fernando A. Flores
11 books255 followersFernando A. Flores was born in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and raised in South Texas. He is a college dropout, avid film photographer, occasional screenwriter, and makes his living in Austin, Texas, doing all kinds of things.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 158 reviews
August 12, 2024
Another absolute banger from Fernando Flores! Brother Brontë takes place in a not too distant future in the dystopian town of Three Rivers, TX. At times it reads like a really badass Western. The book follows generations of women who band together and help each other in the face of corruption and brutal violence. Reading and writing are at the helm of the book - reminding us how important books are, especially when they are being taken away from us. I’m honored to have gotten my hands on an advanced copy of Brother Brontë and recommend everyone buy a copy on 2/11/25!
March 11, 2025
this definitely isn’t going to be a book for everyone but, g*d, i really loved this. it has a hard-shelled, oil slick exterior and a soft heart.
February 11, 2025
BROTHER BRONTË
By Fernando Flores
A pub day review — thank you so much to @fsgbooks and @mcdbooks for sharing this copy with me.
I took a lot of notes at the beginning of this book. I noted how the dystopian world within it seemed to just fly up in front of me, formed and wonderful, all seemingly naturally summoned from thin air, too. I wrote how I kept coming across these delicious sentences that just felt like fat juicy morsels of poem on the tongue. Flores can write a heck of a sentence. I settled in for the book that was doing it all for me.
Book banning and burning!
A rebellion!
Loveable main characters!
Texas border near-future dystopia!
A “government efficiency” situation 👀
A literal TIGER.
I was in. Then, as so many books go, plot and action got in the way. Somewhere in the middle, this one fell off whatever tracks it was on, and the beginning didn’t have enough oomph to pull it all the way out and stick the landing. There is a bit of dazzling complexity in the buildup of this novel, but I felt like it settled for a standard attempt at an action filled denouement. I ended up feeling like the last third of this one didn’t do justice for the rest of it.
I wondered, too, if it’s just too unfortunately pertinent to today to stay actually interesting in a way this sort of novel needs. I never wanted a book that sort of made book banning feel “tropey” but it keeps happening!
I wanted to love this. I think a lot of people will, and I will get it and be so glad they did and wish I’d been able to connect with the entirety of this one like that.
Are you planning to read Brother Brontë?
By Fernando Flores
A pub day review — thank you so much to @fsgbooks and @mcdbooks for sharing this copy with me.
I took a lot of notes at the beginning of this book. I noted how the dystopian world within it seemed to just fly up in front of me, formed and wonderful, all seemingly naturally summoned from thin air, too. I wrote how I kept coming across these delicious sentences that just felt like fat juicy morsels of poem on the tongue. Flores can write a heck of a sentence. I settled in for the book that was doing it all for me.
Book banning and burning!
A rebellion!
Loveable main characters!
Texas border near-future dystopia!
A “government efficiency” situation 👀
A literal TIGER.
I was in. Then, as so many books go, plot and action got in the way. Somewhere in the middle, this one fell off whatever tracks it was on, and the beginning didn’t have enough oomph to pull it all the way out and stick the landing. There is a bit of dazzling complexity in the buildup of this novel, but I felt like it settled for a standard attempt at an action filled denouement. I ended up feeling like the last third of this one didn’t do justice for the rest of it.
I wondered, too, if it’s just too unfortunately pertinent to today to stay actually interesting in a way this sort of novel needs. I never wanted a book that sort of made book banning feel “tropey” but it keeps happening!
I wanted to love this. I think a lot of people will, and I will get it and be so glad they did and wish I’d been able to connect with the entirety of this one like that.
Are you planning to read Brother Brontë?
September 22, 2025
I cannot imagine if reading was illegal- nope. And don’t take my tamales either !!!😡
April 6, 2025
Brother Brontë started off strong, but lost its way in the end. I was grabbed by Neftalí and Prosperina and their near-apocalyptic surroundings, in a world where books are being taken and burned, and all unemployed mothers are forced to join the “worker mother” program, where they work and live in a factory under constant surveillance.
It feels very atmospheric, which I enjoyed, but it lacks in sufficient overall world building; placing you right in the present with them without much information on Pablo Henry Crick- the tech giant authoritarian mayor- or how he came into office. I initially liked the idea that since he came into power when they were so young, their world had always been like that- but I think the more it went on without any expanding info, it became a bit lackluster.
I thought the POV change to the author of Neftalí’s beloved books was unnecessary, and didn’t add much to the story. Once we get back to the girls, the last third of the book is fairly disjointed, jumping from different plot points that could’ve been more fleshed out and connected without the aforementioned change in POV. There was a lot of potential, I’ll probably check out the author’s previous novel Tears of the Trufflepig.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for early access to the audiobook- available as of February 11th.
It feels very atmospheric, which I enjoyed, but it lacks in sufficient overall world building; placing you right in the present with them without much information on Pablo Henry Crick- the tech giant authoritarian mayor- or how he came into office. I initially liked the idea that since he came into power when they were so young, their world had always been like that- but I think the more it went on without any expanding info, it became a bit lackluster.
I thought the POV change to the author of Neftalí’s beloved books was unnecessary, and didn’t add much to the story. Once we get back to the girls, the last third of the book is fairly disjointed, jumping from different plot points that could’ve been more fleshed out and connected without the aforementioned change in POV. There was a lot of potential, I’ll probably check out the author’s previous novel Tears of the Trufflepig.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for early access to the audiobook- available as of February 11th.
March 5, 2025
Finished copy and ALC gifted by the publisher
I really wanted to love this 😅 I was fascinated by the premise set in a not-so-future dystopian Texas. The story started strong with interesting characters and solid world building to give readers a feel of what the world is like. But it lost steam a bit at the middle with the book within a book structure, and the story became quite unfocused after that. I wish the connections between the different “layers” of stories are more explored, and would’ve loved to see how those threads contribute to the dystopia
Not a bad read and the writing is solid, but it just felt like too much in one book
I really wanted to love this 😅 I was fascinated by the premise set in a not-so-future dystopian Texas. The story started strong with interesting characters and solid world building to give readers a feel of what the world is like. But it lost steam a bit at the middle with the book within a book structure, and the story became quite unfocused after that. I wish the connections between the different “layers” of stories are more explored, and would’ve loved to see how those threads contribute to the dystopia
Not a bad read and the writing is solid, but it just felt like too much in one book
March 11, 2025
It’s like a Wes Anderson movie. There’s not a lot of plot, everything is very surface level, random things happen that don’t make sense, you never get to know the characters, and in the end you have no idea what the point was.
March 12, 2025
In the oppressive near-future landscape of Brother Brontë, Three Rivers, Texas stands as a grotesque monument to late-stage capitalism gone catastrophically wrong. Here, in the year 2038, Fernando A. Flores unveils his most ambitious vision yet—a world where literature is contraband, mothers are conscripted labor, and volcanic ash blots out the sun. Despite these bleak circumstances, the novel pulses with humanity through its masterful portrayal of friendship and resistance.
Building on the surrealist tendencies and border town settings he explored in Tears of the Trufflepig and the short story collection Valleyesque, Flores has crafted a world both hauntingly familiar and disturbingly strange. What elevates this dystopian tale above genre conventions is Flores's electric prose style—equal parts gritty realism and hallucinatory vision—and his unwavering commitment to characters marginalized by systems of power.
The novel's greatness lies in how it transforms familiar dystopian tropes into something fresh and vital through an inventive narrative structure, unforgettable characters, and a deep meditation on authorship and women's voices.
The Last Readers of Three Rivers
The novel centers on Neftalí Barrientos, one of the few remaining literate citizens of Three Rivers, and her friend Proserpina Khalifa, former bandmates in the punk group Missus Batches. As women struggling to survive in an increasingly authoritarian landscape, they navigate a world where Mayor Pablo Henry Crick's police force—armed with bayonet rifles and book shredders—hunts down any remaining literature.
When we meet Neftalí, police have just ransacked her childhood home for contraband books, but she's managed to save a rare novel: Brother Brontë by Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, a mysterious author whose works are particularly sought after by the authorities. This book-within-a-book becomes the novel's thematic anchor, telling the story of twin sisters at a boarding school who discover that works written by the Brontë sisters have been falsely attributed to their brother.
Flores weaves three narrative strands with remarkable skill:
- The daily struggles of Neftalí and Proserpina in Three Rivers
- The emergence of resistance against Mayor Crick
- The story of Jazzmin Monelle Rivas herself and how her novel came to be
This structure allows Flores to explore how stories survive in hostile environments and how women's authorship is repeatedly erased or appropriated—themes that resonate powerfully with our present moment despite the futuristic setting.
Literary Resistance in an Illiterate World
What makes Brother Brontë transcend typical dystopian fiction is its unwavering belief in art as resistance. When Neftalí encounters Mama—a wounded Bengal tiger living in an abandoned barn—the relationship between them becomes symbolic of the wild, untamable nature of stories themselves. Meanwhile, a network of "tías" (aunts) who make tamales for the community represent the underground networks of care that sustain resistance.
Flores demonstrates exceptional skill in developing these memorable characters:
- Neftalí: Determined guardian of literature who speaks with her dead mother
- Proserpina: A drummer with a shaved head who secretly reproduces banned texts
- Alexei/Tolstoyevsky: Former bassist turned collaborator with the regime
- The Triplets: Three identical boys who function as messengers and witnesses
- Bettina: Neftalí's surrogate mother, recently released from forced labor at the fish cannery
- Moira and Phoebe: Twin sisters separated by circumstance, reunited by revolution
Through these complex characters, Flores explores themes of motherhood, political complicity, and the transformative power of stories. Even more impressive is how the novel never resorts to simplistic morality—characters make compromises in harsh circumstances, revealing the genuine difficulties of maintaining integrity under oppression.
Language That Defies Convention
Flores's prose style is the novel's greatest triumph. He combines vernacular Southwestern speech patterns with surrealist imagery and sudden bursts of lyricism:
"Rain fell hard like slabs of ham as a squad car pulled into the nearly abandoned neighborhood surrounding Angélica Street. The car flashed its swampy red and blue lights over muck-covered potholes and downed serpentine power lines."
This opening sentence encapsulates everything that makes Flores's style distinctive—unexpected similes, vivid sensory details, and a cinematic eye for the grotesque beauty of decay. His style also incorporates:
- Code-switching between English and Spanish without translation
- Visceral descriptions of the physical toll of poverty and oppression
- Moments of magical realism where reality seems to fold open
The novel's tripartite structure allows Flores to showcase his versatility, shifting registers from the street-level grit of Three Rivers to the more traditionally literary passages in the excerpts from Rivas's fictional novels. This layering of styles creates a rich textual landscape that mirrors the novel's thematic concerns with authorship and authenticity.
Critiques and Considerations
While Brother Brontë is a remarkable achievement, it does have flaws worth addressing. The middle section occasionally meanders with tangential character histories that, while interesting, slow the narrative momentum. Some readers may find the nested narratives initially disorienting, particularly as the novel shifts between Neftalí's story and extensive excerpts from fictional author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas's work.
Additionally, the novel introduces multiple characters in rapid succession, which can make it challenging to track relationships and motivations. These issues are minor compared to the novel's strengths but may present obstacles for some readers.
Perhaps the most valid criticism is that Flores sometimes sacrifices plot clarity for atmospheric effect. The novel's conclusion, while emotionally satisfying, leaves several narrative threads intentionally unresolved—a choice that honors the messy reality of resistance movements but may frustrate readers seeking more conventional closure.
A Literary Legacy in Dangerous Times
The novel's most profound theme is the persistence of women's voices despite systems designed to silence them. By creating a fictional author (Jazzmin Monelle Rivas) whose works survive underground circulation, Flores pays homage to real women writers whose works have been suppressed, forgotten, or attributed to men.
This exploration of authorship extends to the physical form of books themselves. Throughout Brother Brontë, characters treasure the materiality of books—the feel of pages, the smell of binding glue, the weight of hardcovers. In a world where digital technology has been weaponized against citizens, physical books represent a form of resistance that cannot be easily surveilled or controlled.
Flores's background as a bookseller (he worked at Austin's Malvern Books) infuses these passages with authenticity. The novel becomes, in part, a love letter to independent bookstores and the communities they foster.
Final Assessment
Brother Brontë is a triumph of imagination and craft that confirms Flores as one of our most original contemporary novelists. By combining dystopian world-building with profound meditations on authorship, he has created a work that feels both timely and timeless.
The novel's greatest strength is its ability to maintain hope without sentimentality. In a narrative landscape filled with violence, ecological disaster, and authoritarianism, Flores never loses sight of the small acts of care and creation that make resistance possible—a message that resonates powerfully in our own precarious present.
For readers willing to surrender to its unique rhythms and layered narratives, Brother Brontë offers a reading experience unlike any other: challenging, unsettling, and ultimately affirming the power of stories to sustain us in dark times.
Building on the surrealist tendencies and border town settings he explored in Tears of the Trufflepig and the short story collection Valleyesque, Flores has crafted a world both hauntingly familiar and disturbingly strange. What elevates this dystopian tale above genre conventions is Flores's electric prose style—equal parts gritty realism and hallucinatory vision—and his unwavering commitment to characters marginalized by systems of power.
The novel's greatness lies in how it transforms familiar dystopian tropes into something fresh and vital through an inventive narrative structure, unforgettable characters, and a deep meditation on authorship and women's voices.
The Last Readers of Three Rivers
The novel centers on Neftalí Barrientos, one of the few remaining literate citizens of Three Rivers, and her friend Proserpina Khalifa, former bandmates in the punk group Missus Batches. As women struggling to survive in an increasingly authoritarian landscape, they navigate a world where Mayor Pablo Henry Crick's police force—armed with bayonet rifles and book shredders—hunts down any remaining literature.
When we meet Neftalí, police have just ransacked her childhood home for contraband books, but she's managed to save a rare novel: Brother Brontë by Jazzmin Monelle Rivas, a mysterious author whose works are particularly sought after by the authorities. This book-within-a-book becomes the novel's thematic anchor, telling the story of twin sisters at a boarding school who discover that works written by the Brontë sisters have been falsely attributed to their brother.
Flores weaves three narrative strands with remarkable skill:
- The daily struggles of Neftalí and Proserpina in Three Rivers
- The emergence of resistance against Mayor Crick
- The story of Jazzmin Monelle Rivas herself and how her novel came to be
This structure allows Flores to explore how stories survive in hostile environments and how women's authorship is repeatedly erased or appropriated—themes that resonate powerfully with our present moment despite the futuristic setting.
Literary Resistance in an Illiterate World
What makes Brother Brontë transcend typical dystopian fiction is its unwavering belief in art as resistance. When Neftalí encounters Mama—a wounded Bengal tiger living in an abandoned barn—the relationship between them becomes symbolic of the wild, untamable nature of stories themselves. Meanwhile, a network of "tías" (aunts) who make tamales for the community represent the underground networks of care that sustain resistance.
Flores demonstrates exceptional skill in developing these memorable characters:
- Neftalí: Determined guardian of literature who speaks with her dead mother
- Proserpina: A drummer with a shaved head who secretly reproduces banned texts
- Alexei/Tolstoyevsky: Former bassist turned collaborator with the regime
- The Triplets: Three identical boys who function as messengers and witnesses
- Bettina: Neftalí's surrogate mother, recently released from forced labor at the fish cannery
- Moira and Phoebe: Twin sisters separated by circumstance, reunited by revolution
Through these complex characters, Flores explores themes of motherhood, political complicity, and the transformative power of stories. Even more impressive is how the novel never resorts to simplistic morality—characters make compromises in harsh circumstances, revealing the genuine difficulties of maintaining integrity under oppression.
Language That Defies Convention
Flores's prose style is the novel's greatest triumph. He combines vernacular Southwestern speech patterns with surrealist imagery and sudden bursts of lyricism:
"Rain fell hard like slabs of ham as a squad car pulled into the nearly abandoned neighborhood surrounding Angélica Street. The car flashed its swampy red and blue lights over muck-covered potholes and downed serpentine power lines."
This opening sentence encapsulates everything that makes Flores's style distinctive—unexpected similes, vivid sensory details, and a cinematic eye for the grotesque beauty of decay. His style also incorporates:
- Code-switching between English and Spanish without translation
- Visceral descriptions of the physical toll of poverty and oppression
- Moments of magical realism where reality seems to fold open
The novel's tripartite structure allows Flores to showcase his versatility, shifting registers from the street-level grit of Three Rivers to the more traditionally literary passages in the excerpts from Rivas's fictional novels. This layering of styles creates a rich textual landscape that mirrors the novel's thematic concerns with authorship and authenticity.
Critiques and Considerations
While Brother Brontë is a remarkable achievement, it does have flaws worth addressing. The middle section occasionally meanders with tangential character histories that, while interesting, slow the narrative momentum. Some readers may find the nested narratives initially disorienting, particularly as the novel shifts between Neftalí's story and extensive excerpts from fictional author Jazzmin Monelle Rivas's work.
Additionally, the novel introduces multiple characters in rapid succession, which can make it challenging to track relationships and motivations. These issues are minor compared to the novel's strengths but may present obstacles for some readers.
Perhaps the most valid criticism is that Flores sometimes sacrifices plot clarity for atmospheric effect. The novel's conclusion, while emotionally satisfying, leaves several narrative threads intentionally unresolved—a choice that honors the messy reality of resistance movements but may frustrate readers seeking more conventional closure.
A Literary Legacy in Dangerous Times
The novel's most profound theme is the persistence of women's voices despite systems designed to silence them. By creating a fictional author (Jazzmin Monelle Rivas) whose works survive underground circulation, Flores pays homage to real women writers whose works have been suppressed, forgotten, or attributed to men.
This exploration of authorship extends to the physical form of books themselves. Throughout Brother Brontë, characters treasure the materiality of books—the feel of pages, the smell of binding glue, the weight of hardcovers. In a world where digital technology has been weaponized against citizens, physical books represent a form of resistance that cannot be easily surveilled or controlled.
Flores's background as a bookseller (he worked at Austin's Malvern Books) infuses these passages with authenticity. The novel becomes, in part, a love letter to independent bookstores and the communities they foster.
Final Assessment
Brother Brontë is a triumph of imagination and craft that confirms Flores as one of our most original contemporary novelists. By combining dystopian world-building with profound meditations on authorship, he has created a work that feels both timely and timeless.
The novel's greatest strength is its ability to maintain hope without sentimentality. In a narrative landscape filled with violence, ecological disaster, and authoritarianism, Flores never loses sight of the small acts of care and creation that make resistance possible—a message that resonates powerfully in our own precarious present.
For readers willing to surrender to its unique rhythms and layered narratives, Brother Brontë offers a reading experience unlike any other: challenging, unsettling, and ultimately affirming the power of stories to sustain us in dark times.
February 28, 2025
Thank you so much to Goodreads giveaways as well as the author Fernando A. Flores and their publisher for the ARC copy of this book.
I'd say this book was closer to a 4.5 than a 4 for me. I wasn't expecting to love the story as much as I did. This wasn't an action-packed story which meant it leaned closer to a contemporary style while remaining dystopian in nature. Very similar to 1984 in that way. I would suggest this book to anyone who liked The Handmaid's Tale or 1984.
I'd say this book was closer to a 4.5 than a 4 for me. I wasn't expecting to love the story as much as I did. This wasn't an action-packed story which meant it leaned closer to a contemporary style while remaining dystopian in nature. Very similar to 1984 in that way. I would suggest this book to anyone who liked The Handmaid's Tale or 1984.
Read
April 28, 2025I mean truly just so jam packed. Says SOMETHING which is much more than most contemporary novels can say. Fun, sad, endearing, queasy, rebellious.
August 4, 2025
Did not finish at p35. To me, every paragraph read like a high school English assignment to “write a paragraph using at least 3 metaphors and 3 similes”. Just nonstop descriptions like “They stubbed over placentas of half eaten food”, and heavy handed, weird dialogue. If you’re really into a desert wasteland punk story, maybe this is for you, but I couldn’t fight past the writing.
November 30, 2024
This book and I never quite gelled. It is well-written and I can appreciate that it comes from an acclaimed Latin American writer, but plot points and characters came across as more random than anything else to me. For example, for most of the book, one of the main characters has a full-size Bengal tiger as a pet. No real reason, just because. There is also a fierce, at times, round up and burning of books, but the effort is mostly a side note. I get it…the world of the novel is dystopian and times are tough and weird in lots of ways. It’s just that these ways felt random and didn’t contribute to a strong story arc in my opinion. Having finished the book 5 days or so ago, I already find it hard to remember what it was about.
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for letting me read an advance copy of this book.
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for letting me read an advance copy of this book.
September 29, 2024
Never mind that this has a first line that lives in my brain now. Weird and does such a great job with unique descriptions of everything Three Rivers seems awful and alive.
abandoned
April 14, 2025Ugh this book started with my least favorite narrative device ever: characters having conversations no one ever has in real life, just to world-build or info dump for the reader. So clumsy.
May 15, 2025
More accurately a 3.5✨ This book very much gives “slice of life” vibes, but set it in a dystopian world😭 I actually enjoyed not having any of the characters directly engaging in or fighting in the rebellion bc it allowed for a much more interesting progression of events that if you weren’t paying attention to the background, you’d miss. That alone kept me really engaged, but I also found the characters quite enjoyable bc we didn’t get a full life story of anyone, so with each page we were learning bits and pieces of these different characters. I was also really impressed by the narration in this audiobook bc it’s in third person pov, but the narrator does a phenomenal job at distinguishing their voice for each of these different characters and being consistent with it!
February 19, 2025
Set in the near future of 2038, the story unfolds in the wasteland of Three Rivers. Oppressed under a tyrannical rule, the people are banned from reading, and mothers are forced to work as laborers. Somehow surviving these odds are two girls, one of whom loves to read secretly. When the atrocities rise beyond their limit of tolerance, they seek external help from an underground rebel group and an injured Bengal tigress.
Drifting through this world, you catch hints of dystopian themes and autocracy peeking through the curtains. Intended to reveal its rules layer by layer, you may find yourself wondering what's going on for a significant portion of the book. However, I would suggest you trust the process and go with the flow.
There is also a concept of the dust with cloudy weather that drills down the effectiveness of a dystopian world on the brink of collapse. It was also interesting to read so many reasons behind the sun vanishing & I loved that the title finally makes sense at the end! Though it's not what you may initially perceive it to be, so stay tuned till the end for the sweet surprise. 😉
Drifting through this world, you catch hints of dystopian themes and autocracy peeking through the curtains. Intended to reveal its rules layer by layer, you may find yourself wondering what's going on for a significant portion of the book. However, I would suggest you trust the process and go with the flow.
There is also a concept of the dust with cloudy weather that drills down the effectiveness of a dystopian world on the brink of collapse. It was also interesting to read so many reasons behind the sun vanishing & I loved that the title finally makes sense at the end! Though it's not what you may initially perceive it to be, so stay tuned till the end for the sweet surprise. 😉
June 14, 2025
This book has many good elements and some high quality writing that makes the first third to half of this novel really strong. The last third to a half lost its way and wandered around squandering the momentum and connections that had been built up. This book needed to do less to accomplish more. I got a glimmer of the imaginative excitement that Flores can deliver but it didn't gel due to too much ambition and not enough book to support it.
March 14, 2025
DNF - interesting premise, some cool worldbuilding, but the rest is pretty weak. Feels like he had all these ideas but then had to pad it out to have a novel. All the characters and dialogue feel really same-y and the plot is lacking. Also the middle pre-apocalypse section didn't do anything for me--what's the point of setting up this dystopian world and not using it for a quarter of the book?
April 13, 2025
DNF 25%. This book was all over the place and if I had to read / say Proserpina one more time I was going to scream. Even Goodreads couldn't get the name correct, referring to her as "Prosperina" in the summary.
July 10, 2025
If you ever wanted to know what it is like to be trapped in a Salvadore Dali painting, here's your ticket. This novel had so many threads, disjointed stories, and fantastical situations. I struggled to read it. I think if you appreciate the bizarre, this novel is for you.
March 25, 2025
Actual magic realism, y'all!
March 6, 2025
BROTHER BRONTË is a certified banger in my book.
the blurb tells you that BROTHER BRONTË involves neftalí and proserpina, former punk bandmates and hermanas in spirit, who navigate the destitute city of three rivers, texas, in 2038. i would call the setting apocalyptic if it were not so close to our current reality--the city has been abandoned by a big tech company; deportations are rampant; unemployed mothers are forced to work; and books are being shredded, leaving neftalí, one of the few remaining literate residents of the city, as the protector of what might be the last completely in tact hardback novel in existence.
however, BROTHER BRONTË's cast of characters is so much larger than the two named here, and these characters dip in and out of the main narrative, and they sometimes spiral back to make a guest appearance. this structure means that as readers, we're sometimes on the sidelines of the action, following a random character as they observe a dramatic event, or they hear someone recounting a rumor that they heard. i think that this might be frustrating for some readers, but i personally really enjoyed gathering the puzzle pieces of the narrative from different characters and trying to fit them all together by the end. by making this novel larger than just neftalí and proserpina, flores constructs a novel about generations of women and inheritance. the impact that these women have on one another--whether it be through exchanging oral folk tales while being forced to work at the fish cannery, or by teaching one another to read--is carried with so much love and responsibility even if what is passed down is no longer tangible or is even physically erased. i love that each of the characters leave their emotional or mental fingerprints on one another, even if we never see some characters again.
flores brings all of these elements and plot threads together through his almost cinematic writing--things move at their own pace on the page because every detail is accounted for. this is a novel where the imagery plays such a large role in constructing the world, and i'm glad that flores didn't skimp on the figurative language.
when i went to hear flores talk about this book with héctor tobar, tobar expressed his amazement that despite it taking a decade to write, flores managed to construct such a prescient novel. flores responded to the praise by dismissing this as luck, but i don't believe him. although the man-made catastrophes presented in BROTHER BRONTË are compounded on one another to the point of feeling dystopian, their familiarity to us serves as a reminder that poor people, women, immigrants, and people of color have been experiencing their own mini "apocalypses" for many years now.
this book will take you on a wild and spiraling ride, and if you're down for that, i think you might end up loving it as much as i do.
the blurb tells you that BROTHER BRONTË involves neftalí and proserpina, former punk bandmates and hermanas in spirit, who navigate the destitute city of three rivers, texas, in 2038. i would call the setting apocalyptic if it were not so close to our current reality--the city has been abandoned by a big tech company; deportations are rampant; unemployed mothers are forced to work; and books are being shredded, leaving neftalí, one of the few remaining literate residents of the city, as the protector of what might be the last completely in tact hardback novel in existence.
however, BROTHER BRONTË's cast of characters is so much larger than the two named here, and these characters dip in and out of the main narrative, and they sometimes spiral back to make a guest appearance. this structure means that as readers, we're sometimes on the sidelines of the action, following a random character as they observe a dramatic event, or they hear someone recounting a rumor that they heard. i think that this might be frustrating for some readers, but i personally really enjoyed gathering the puzzle pieces of the narrative from different characters and trying to fit them all together by the end. by making this novel larger than just neftalí and proserpina, flores constructs a novel about generations of women and inheritance. the impact that these women have on one another--whether it be through exchanging oral folk tales while being forced to work at the fish cannery, or by teaching one another to read--is carried with so much love and responsibility even if what is passed down is no longer tangible or is even physically erased. i love that each of the characters leave their emotional or mental fingerprints on one another, even if we never see some characters again.
flores brings all of these elements and plot threads together through his almost cinematic writing--things move at their own pace on the page because every detail is accounted for. this is a novel where the imagery plays such a large role in constructing the world, and i'm glad that flores didn't skimp on the figurative language.
when i went to hear flores talk about this book with héctor tobar, tobar expressed his amazement that despite it taking a decade to write, flores managed to construct such a prescient novel. flores responded to the praise by dismissing this as luck, but i don't believe him. although the man-made catastrophes presented in BROTHER BRONTË are compounded on one another to the point of feeling dystopian, their familiarity to us serves as a reminder that poor people, women, immigrants, and people of color have been experiencing their own mini "apocalypses" for many years now.
this book will take you on a wild and spiraling ride, and if you're down for that, i think you might end up loving it as much as i do.
February 15, 2025
Stories within stories, this interestingly organized, evocative, and intriguing novel has intertwined tales of multiple characters including a novelist who reinvents fictions such as a retelling of the twins, Pride and Prejudice, and the Brontë brother.
It’s set in the near future primarily in small-town Texas near the Mexican border, where you can’t see the stars or a blue sky because of volcanic ash or the detritus of war. No one we meet can say for sure why. It’s a time and place where books and readers are rare, and children don’t know how to add; where mothers are required by law to work slave-level jobs in the local cannery (and are held captive - “provided for” - there), so their children will receive food rations. Where girls might wear patterns in their tights to spell out protests, and can be killed for smoking in public. It’s bleak, with some bright spots of human kindness.
More than climate fiction, it’s a compelling and scary potential reality that might result from ongoing political schisms and fringe beliefs taking hold. My overall take-away is that we must value words and continue telling our stories. And not give up the fight!
My thanks to the author, publisher, producer, and #NetGalley for access to the audiobook of #BrotherBrontë for review purposes. The book is available now. Lots for books clubs to discuss!
It’s set in the near future primarily in small-town Texas near the Mexican border, where you can’t see the stars or a blue sky because of volcanic ash or the detritus of war. No one we meet can say for sure why. It’s a time and place where books and readers are rare, and children don’t know how to add; where mothers are required by law to work slave-level jobs in the local cannery (and are held captive - “provided for” - there), so their children will receive food rations. Where girls might wear patterns in their tights to spell out protests, and can be killed for smoking in public. It’s bleak, with some bright spots of human kindness.
More than climate fiction, it’s a compelling and scary potential reality that might result from ongoing political schisms and fringe beliefs taking hold. My overall take-away is that we must value words and continue telling our stories. And not give up the fight!
My thanks to the author, publisher, producer, and #NetGalley for access to the audiobook of #BrotherBrontë for review purposes. The book is available now. Lots for books clubs to discuss!
August 17, 2025
I was thinking of these torments again! Nothing like it, Fernando!
They walked the empty streets and passed a couple of trolleys carrying early-shift workers and late-night clubbers; a white carriage with a man smacking his lips at his horse; people sleeping in every crevice of the city, sometimes with leashed pet cats and dogs.
It was either a heavy-metal D'Artagnan or a central Texan Kaspar Hauser, surviving on energy drinks and power chords alone; he wore old baggy jeans and a shirt two sizes too large for his slim frame, which displayed the emblem of the young women's long-broken-up underground punk band, Missus Batches. Neftali watched Proserpina's expression change from annoyed, to perplexed, to delighted, when they both saw that the figure was their former number one fan, Po, a young rocker from their Old Freeway neighborhood, and one of the last people to remember they had once made up two-thirds of a three-piece band.
They walked the empty streets and passed a couple of trolleys carrying early-shift workers and late-night clubbers; a white carriage with a man smacking his lips at his horse; people sleeping in every crevice of the city, sometimes with leashed pet cats and dogs.
It was either a heavy-metal D'Artagnan or a central Texan Kaspar Hauser, surviving on energy drinks and power chords alone; he wore old baggy jeans and a shirt two sizes too large for his slim frame, which displayed the emblem of the young women's long-broken-up underground punk band, Missus Batches. Neftali watched Proserpina's expression change from annoyed, to perplexed, to delighted, when they both saw that the figure was their former number one fan, Po, a young rocker from their Old Freeway neighborhood, and one of the last people to remember they had once made up two-thirds of a three-piece band.
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February 20, 2025What drew me to Brother Bronte was the cover, so I definitely didn't know what I was getting into.
This book was all over the place, I didn't have any particular expectations, but the book managed to surprise me nonetheless.
It's hard to talk about it without spoiling some of its plot points (if it even has those?) All I can say is that the story takes place in Texas in an dystopian future.
It made my mind an absolute mess (It didn't help that I was reading it, or rather listening to the audiobook while being sick). But I did enjoy the ending, it tied up everything perfectly. The last 15% of the book were more heartfelt and more meaningful than the rest of the book. At least to me.
I'm leaving it unrated on GoodReads.
This book was all over the place, I didn't have any particular expectations, but the book managed to surprise me nonetheless.
It's hard to talk about it without spoiling some of its plot points (if it even has those?) All I can say is that the story takes place in Texas in an dystopian future.
It made my mind an absolute mess (It didn't help that I was reading it, or rather listening to the audiobook while being sick). But I did enjoy the ending, it tied up everything perfectly. The last 15% of the book were more heartfelt and more meaningful than the rest of the book. At least to me.
I'm leaving it unrated on GoodReads.
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February 6, 2025I’m glad I went with my gut and decided to check this out. The title didn’t catch my attention so I almost passed it up before reading the description. There are a bunch of characters and a lot going on but it’s written in way that’s lively, exciting and far from overwhelming. I felt hopeful and refreshed after listening.
The audiobook narrator was the perfect voice for this book! Thanks to the publishers and NetGallery for letting me listen!
The audiobook narrator was the perfect voice for this book! Thanks to the publishers and NetGallery for letting me listen!
May 3, 2025
I was looking forward to this book, but in the end, it was a bit of a disappointment. It was very interesting, and very strange. Sometimes the strangeness was really effective, but other times it just made it hard to buy the story. Big points for sheer originality! Worth a read if you're looking for a less cliched dystopia.
August 14, 2025
The first part of this book “book one” is packed and stuffed with imagery and adjectives that make you feel like you gorged on thanksgiving. By third part of the book, everything comes together. But the way the book ends is just…..not really an ending. It left me wanting more of a conclusion. And I’m sad the main characters don’t stay the main characters.
The author does a lovely job and describing scenes. But this book has a very choppy timeline with little to no conclusion.
The author does a lovely job and describing scenes. But this book has a very choppy timeline with little to no conclusion.
November 25, 2025
my first DNF of the year, i think, at 75%. i have no idea what this book was trying to accomplish tonally, and i've had more than enough of the robotic dialogue and over-embellished prose. read this one only if you're excited by the prospect of a contrived dystopian setting, a juvenile take on magical realism, peeing (???), and/or a character named "the man in the fucking hat" 🙂👎
December 15, 2025
While the themes of the book are as timely as ever, relating to the treatment of immigrants, shared stories , and community, they often struggle to come together in a cohesive way. There are some nice details that make the book worth reading, but I leave it feeling that more could have been done with this framework.
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