What do you think?
Rate this book
Faltas. Cartas a todas las personas de mi pueblo que no me violaron
Una mujer trans madura, artista y activista por los derechos de las minorías migrantes y las disidencias decide ajustar cuentas con su pasado. Vive desde hace décadas en Nueva York, pero todavía le pesan en el cuerpo y el corazón las marcas que dejó el abuso durante su infancia en Gálvez, un pequeño pueblo del litoral argentino. Es hora de contar los secretos, de exponer los traumas. El formato elegido es el de una serie de cartas que acaso nunca lleguen a destino, textos que hacen todo al mismo tiempo: acusar, redimir, burlarse, enseñar, seducir. Sus destinatarios son quienes, voluntaria o involuntariamente, fueron cómplices de la violencia sufrida. Personas comunes y corrientes que contribuyeron con su silencio a que su vida fuera mucho más hostil y precaria que la de otros niños.
Cecilia Gentili escribe con una contundencia única y expande las posibilidades de las narrativas queer con estas misivas tan hilarantes como conmovedoras. ¿Busca venganza o quiere perdonar? Quizás las dos cosas a la vez. Por eso se dirige a la hija de su violador, a la amante de su padre, a su mejor amigo, a su abuela y a su madre para transmutar el dolor atávico del pasado en una vida más plena, sin crueldad ni miseria. Con la potencia de su lengua travesti, Faltas es un ejercicio de exorcismo, una hermosa meditación sobre el poder de la escritura para sanar las heridas más punzantes y construir comunidad.
Cecilia Gentili escribe con una contundencia única y expande las posibilidades de las narrativas queer con estas misivas tan hilarantes como conmovedoras. ¿Busca venganza o quiere perdonar? Quizás las dos cosas a la vez. Por eso se dirige a la hija de su violador, a la amante de su padre, a su mejor amigo, a su abuela y a su madre para transmutar el dolor atávico del pasado en una vida más plena, sin crueldad ni miseria. Con la potencia de su lengua travesti, Faltas es un ejercicio de exorcismo, una hermosa meditación sobre el poder de la escritura para sanar las heridas más punzantes y construir comunidad.
208 pages, Paperback
First published October 4, 2022
36 people are currently reading
2335 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews
October 22, 2022
What an incredible book. In a series of letters, Cecilia Gentili writes to friends, foes, and family in her hometown of Galvez, Argentina and in turn shares the story of her childhood and growing up. She writes with a breathtaking directness, a remarkable vulnerability, and a charming sense of humour. Her charisma oozes off the page, even as – or perhaps especially when – she describes her 'bad' behaviour.
It's an unexpected comparison, but Gentili's writing reminded me sometimes of Fiona Apple. Both women have a way of unflinchingly laying bare their truth, in a deceptively simple way that feels brand new while at the same time being deeply familiar. It's as if Gentili is saying, "Here they are, these hard truths. Coming at them askance or beating around the bush isn't going to do us any good." And it's not just when she writes about other people; she also looks right at herself in the mirror and shares what she sees. She writes: "It has been hard to come to understand myself as this person that I sometimes don't like at all." Writing about the complicated relationship she had with her mother, she drops a truth bomb like this: "I am saying sometimes people who love us don't know how to treat us right."
The trauma of childhood sexual abuse at the centre of this book is clear in its subtitle: "letters to everyone in my hometown who isn't my rapist." Gentili doesn't give her rapist the attention of a direct letter, but she tells her story from different angles throughout the book. It's fucking heartbreaking, obviously. But it also seems clear that offloading the burden of pretending it didn't happen is a relief. No more trying to uphold the fiction of a nice little town where nothing bad happened.
Gentili is here to hold people accountable and to share how she was targeted as a young queer, trans kid. It's heavy. But, remarkably, at the same time this book is consistently funny and endlessly gracious. How did she do that?? When she first learns about menstruation, she is told that women who have a hard time with her periods are being punished for their sinfulness. As a trans girl who has passed the age when she's told beginning to menstruate is normal, she takes in this information thoughtfully. She muses: "I was upset at this further confirmation that I was not a normal girl. At the same time I thought: Thank God I am not, because I for sure am closer to the devilish side, and my period would be filled with pain!" She also often makes you laugh and feel sad at the same time: "All that pain made me strong, of course, but who wants to be strong? I wanted to be happy!"
The letter that really shows off Gentili's graciousness is the one she pens to her mother. It's infuriating to read that her mom and other adults in her life were aware she was being abused and did nothing. But that's not the emotion you get from Gentili, who asks her mom, "What happened to you that made you navigate all of this as if it was normal?" Her deep empathy and compassion are astounding. And it makes her deeply satisfying "fuck you" to the self-righteous and hateful Doña Delia and her refusal to address her rapist all the more poignant.
The letter to her oldest friend Juan Pablo, in contrast, is a wonderful testament to the power of queer friendship and solidarity. She tells him: "I guess finding each other saved us. I am sure finding you saved me." The letter to her grandmother was similarly joyful. Although lacking the language of "trans" or even that Gentili was a girl, her grandmother wholeheartedly accepted Gentili's femininity, encouraging her to be herself. The love and gratitude expressed in the letter are beautiful to witness.
Faltas – fault or lack in Spanish, both meanings of which are clearly applicable – is an immensely readable book. It has a late night kitchen table storytelling feel to it that the frame of the letter format really emphasizes. It often feels like Gentili is right there, telling you these stories over a mug of tea. She's addressing the letter to someone, speaking to "you," but the letters weave in and out of directly talking to the addressee and recounting relevant stories. The immediacy is stunning.
I'm truly honoured to have received a review copy of Faltas, Little Puss Press's first book. What a beginning. Don't miss this book people.
It's an unexpected comparison, but Gentili's writing reminded me sometimes of Fiona Apple. Both women have a way of unflinchingly laying bare their truth, in a deceptively simple way that feels brand new while at the same time being deeply familiar. It's as if Gentili is saying, "Here they are, these hard truths. Coming at them askance or beating around the bush isn't going to do us any good." And it's not just when she writes about other people; she also looks right at herself in the mirror and shares what she sees. She writes: "It has been hard to come to understand myself as this person that I sometimes don't like at all." Writing about the complicated relationship she had with her mother, she drops a truth bomb like this: "I am saying sometimes people who love us don't know how to treat us right."
The trauma of childhood sexual abuse at the centre of this book is clear in its subtitle: "letters to everyone in my hometown who isn't my rapist." Gentili doesn't give her rapist the attention of a direct letter, but she tells her story from different angles throughout the book. It's fucking heartbreaking, obviously. But it also seems clear that offloading the burden of pretending it didn't happen is a relief. No more trying to uphold the fiction of a nice little town where nothing bad happened.
Gentili is here to hold people accountable and to share how she was targeted as a young queer, trans kid. It's heavy. But, remarkably, at the same time this book is consistently funny and endlessly gracious. How did she do that?? When she first learns about menstruation, she is told that women who have a hard time with her periods are being punished for their sinfulness. As a trans girl who has passed the age when she's told beginning to menstruate is normal, she takes in this information thoughtfully. She muses: "I was upset at this further confirmation that I was not a normal girl. At the same time I thought: Thank God I am not, because I for sure am closer to the devilish side, and my period would be filled with pain!" She also often makes you laugh and feel sad at the same time: "All that pain made me strong, of course, but who wants to be strong? I wanted to be happy!"
The letter that really shows off Gentili's graciousness is the one she pens to her mother. It's infuriating to read that her mom and other adults in her life were aware she was being abused and did nothing. But that's not the emotion you get from Gentili, who asks her mom, "What happened to you that made you navigate all of this as if it was normal?" Her deep empathy and compassion are astounding. And it makes her deeply satisfying "fuck you" to the self-righteous and hateful Doña Delia and her refusal to address her rapist all the more poignant.
The letter to her oldest friend Juan Pablo, in contrast, is a wonderful testament to the power of queer friendship and solidarity. She tells him: "I guess finding each other saved us. I am sure finding you saved me." The letter to her grandmother was similarly joyful. Although lacking the language of "trans" or even that Gentili was a girl, her grandmother wholeheartedly accepted Gentili's femininity, encouraging her to be herself. The love and gratitude expressed in the letter are beautiful to witness.
Faltas – fault or lack in Spanish, both meanings of which are clearly applicable – is an immensely readable book. It has a late night kitchen table storytelling feel to it that the frame of the letter format really emphasizes. It often feels like Gentili is right there, telling you these stories over a mug of tea. She's addressing the letter to someone, speaking to "you," but the letters weave in and out of directly talking to the addressee and recounting relevant stories. The immediacy is stunning.
I'm truly honoured to have received a review copy of Faltas, Little Puss Press's first book. What a beginning. Don't miss this book people.
October 14, 2022
Cecilia Gentili has, with Faltas, given us a master class in the trans woman trick of taking horrible, brutal abjection and, through charm, glamour, and skill, weaving it into scintillating humor and heart-rattling, sensuous humanity. Her voice is inimitable and her story changed my damn life.
November 15, 2022
In some ways I may never finish processing this book. Gentili's writing is so raw without ever feeling unpolished, so personal and honest and unflinching. Alongside Dream Rooms and A Year Without a Name: A Memoir, it is a trans memoir that apologizes for nothing and refuses to make compromises for cisgender readers. Gentili's treatment of the trauma central to "Faltas" is unparalleled; nothing feels sensationalized but nothing is shied away from. A phenomenal, important book.
January 20, 2025
Mi problema principal con la literatura LGBT es cuando empieza el tono lastimero de la víctima. Me saca de quicio. Podés estar contando una anécdota dura sin convertirla en un monólogo de "ay pobre de mí el mundo me odia nadie me quiere me como el gusanito". Pero parece que en la literatura LGBT (whatever the fuck that means), eso es dificílisimo de hacer.
Afortunadamente, no pasa eso en este libro.
Cecilia cuenta historias terribles en un contexto terrible. Violaciones, pobreza, vidas perdidas, sueños muertos o que ni siquiera llegaron a nacer. Y eso es lo excelente que tiene este libro. No es sólo la infancia de Cecilia, sino que es la historia de un pueblito del interior (que, como todos los pueblitos del interior, está rebosante de gente de mierda). No es sólo la infancia de Cecilia, sino que es el tejido social en el que estaba metida y del que no podía salir.
La autora no busca perdonar ni que la perdonen. Sólo quiere contar lo que le pasó, quiere vomitar lo que sintió en todos esos años, lo bueno y lo malo. Tampoco quiere sacar conclusiones ni encontrar respuestas dogmáticas sobre lo que le pasó.
El epílogo medio me la bajó porque lo escribió otra persona después de la muerte de Cecilia, y si bien es cortito, tiene ese tono lastimero y victimoso del que hablaba al comienzo. Pueden salteárselo y leer una bio de Cecilia más objetiva y completa en literalmente cualquier otro lado.
Afortunadamente, no pasa eso en este libro.
Cecilia cuenta historias terribles en un contexto terrible. Violaciones, pobreza, vidas perdidas, sueños muertos o que ni siquiera llegaron a nacer. Y eso es lo excelente que tiene este libro. No es sólo la infancia de Cecilia, sino que es la historia de un pueblito del interior (que, como todos los pueblitos del interior, está rebosante de gente de mierda). No es sólo la infancia de Cecilia, sino que es el tejido social en el que estaba metida y del que no podía salir.
La autora no busca perdonar ni que la perdonen. Sólo quiere contar lo que le pasó, quiere vomitar lo que sintió en todos esos años, lo bueno y lo malo. Tampoco quiere sacar conclusiones ni encontrar respuestas dogmáticas sobre lo que le pasó.
El epílogo medio me la bajó porque lo escribió otra persona después de la muerte de Cecilia, y si bien es cortito, tiene ese tono lastimero y victimoso del que hablaba al comienzo. Pueden salteárselo y leer una bio de Cecilia más objetiva y completa en literalmente cualquier otro lado.
November 25, 2023
Super sharp, raw, tragic, funny and devastating at the same time. Cried and laughed and took notes.
October 6, 2022
Remarkable book- first outing from Little Puss Press, a trans-feminist press run by poet Cat Fitzpatrick and Canadian award-winning fiction writer Casey Plett.
Cecilia Gentilli's focus is transporting in this intense, intimate, direct address series of letters/memory poems evoking the emotional and narrative frame of her young life and origin story as a trans woman born in Mexico.
A perfect text for high school and university classes in Memoir, Nonfiction, Latinx Studies, Women and Gender Studies, LGBT and Trans studies.
Cecilia Gentilli's focus is transporting in this intense, intimate, direct address series of letters/memory poems evoking the emotional and narrative frame of her young life and origin story as a trans woman born in Mexico.
A perfect text for high school and university classes in Memoir, Nonfiction, Latinx Studies, Women and Gender Studies, LGBT and Trans studies.
August 4, 2025
Transitar por las cartas de este libro es doloroso pero necesario ❤️🩹 La carta a la abuela es tremenda.
October 25, 2023
I'm in awe of what Cecilia Gentili has done with this searing, witty memoir in letters.
April 12, 2025
Es un libro fuerte, trata sobre el dolor de la niñez queer.
Cecilia le escribe cartas a distintas personas de su natal Argentina. El género epistolar sin duda es el más acertado para exponer la vida de Cecilia. La escritura-voz enfrenta a personas del pasado sin que estas puedan responder, porque estas personas ya accionaron (o no) en su minuto, y ahora es el turno de Cecilia. Solo de ella.
En estos recuerdos, se observa como el género/sexo es la jaula de horror para un niño/nena; el cuerpo no permite el ser, pero al mismo tiempo se buscan medidas desesperadas para permitirse la expresión, para abrazar esa sombra. Porque lamentablemente el niño/nena solo puede ayudarse a si mismo. Esto no es un acto solitario, porque uno es en la medida que la comunidad te rodea, y ahí el debacle del problema.
No es la desinformación, no es el no querer ver, no es la no educación.
Es la falta de amor para poder ver a ese otro.
Es muy limpia la escritura, que no nos falten nunca las cartas.
P.d; me lo leí en más días de lo que marque acá. Es corto. Pero sí es deprimente. Leía en las mañanas y quedaba mal todo el día.
Cecilia le escribe cartas a distintas personas de su natal Argentina. El género epistolar sin duda es el más acertado para exponer la vida de Cecilia. La escritura-voz enfrenta a personas del pasado sin que estas puedan responder, porque estas personas ya accionaron (o no) en su minuto, y ahora es el turno de Cecilia. Solo de ella.
En estos recuerdos, se observa como el género/sexo es la jaula de horror para un niño/nena; el cuerpo no permite el ser, pero al mismo tiempo se buscan medidas desesperadas para permitirse la expresión, para abrazar esa sombra. Porque lamentablemente el niño/nena solo puede ayudarse a si mismo. Esto no es un acto solitario, porque uno es en la medida que la comunidad te rodea, y ahí el debacle del problema.
No es la desinformación, no es el no querer ver, no es la no educación.
Es la falta de amor para poder ver a ese otro.
Es muy limpia la escritura, que no nos falten nunca las cartas.
P.d; me lo leí en más días de lo que marque acá. Es corto. Pero sí es deprimente. Leía en las mañanas y quedaba mal todo el día.
March 9, 2025
Intense read. Cecilia Gentili is a powerhouse in the sex worker and HIV/AIDS world here in the US, so I was eager to read more about her in her own words.
Trigger warning for child sexual abuse. The subtitle is “ letters to everyone in my hometown who isn’t my rapist” but the first half of the book are Cecilia’s letters to childhood friends whose fathers or other male relatives had sexually abused her. Repeatedly.
I nearly stopped reading several times. But her later letters are to the loved ones of her childhood who taught her to be strong, treated her as if she were special, included her in things that made her happy. And those letters are beautiful and heart warming.
Trigger warning for child sexual abuse. The subtitle is “ letters to everyone in my hometown who isn’t my rapist” but the first half of the book are Cecilia’s letters to childhood friends whose fathers or other male relatives had sexually abused her. Repeatedly.
I nearly stopped reading several times. But her later letters are to the loved ones of her childhood who taught her to be strong, treated her as if she were special, included her in things that made her happy. And those letters are beautiful and heart warming.
March 11, 2024
read the whole thing in more or less one go, which was a lot, but it's engrossing and so readable. spent the whole book wishing I could text Cecilia as I read. many of the experiences she's describing are appalling but even while talking about heinous things she is just so fucking funny. I want people to remember that. this woman went through a lot of fucked up shit and came out of it sharp and brilliant and generous and funny as hell. it's stupid but I wish I read the book earlier so I could tell her it's a triumph.
April 1, 2025
Hermoso. Cruel. Queer. Doloroso. Real. Las palabras las puso Cecilia. Están todas en este libro y en sus cartas. Tanto dolor y tanta desidia, y tanta vida desde su corazón de niña para levantar la cabeza y buscar lo suyo, para culminar con dos cartas bellísimas: a su abuela y a su madre. Ahí está el amor. La última carta a forma de epílogo es la reafirmación de su voz y como quiso usarla en este libro. Me encantó.
February 12, 2025
A glorious, powerful, heart-wrenching, and utterly spectacular memoir of youth and place from St. Cecilia, the Mother of Whores. May she rest in peace.
I loved that Cecilia wrote specifically the women in her shaped her childhood. The women who had the kind of soft power that could’ve saved her from CSA and other abuses at the hands of men, but they so often didn’t. (Except for her (good) grandmother and her best friend Juan Paulo, who was a young person himself.) Cecilia cracked open her soul and trauma to explore the breaking and building points of herself, while assuring her younger self that what she experienced was abuse and none of it was her fault. Over and over, she repeated to her younger self that she wasn’t at fault for her own abuse.
Cecilia’s vivid words painted the landscape of the Argentinian town as you got to know the various characters that populated it and how the community worked together and against itself. Some of it was funny and explored the ridiculous nature of a child making the best of what life dealt her.
While Cecilia and I have different stories, I cried multiple times reading this and resonated with her exploration of adult women failing her in childhood and about how you did everything you could to survive (even if was ill-advised, dangerous, over-the-top, or otherwise not your fault). I believe there is something specific that Cecilia describes about the abandonment of queer children to the wolves by adult cishet women, often family members,. Cecilia’s knowing this in herself is one the many reasons she connected and made such an incredible difference in many queer and trans people’s lives. She mothered so many trans people, especially women, in the most joyous moments of our lives as we broke away to become who we are. I wish she had lived to write a sequel about that joy and pain of her adult life.
I loved that Cecilia wrote specifically the women in her shaped her childhood. The women who had the kind of soft power that could’ve saved her from CSA and other abuses at the hands of men, but they so often didn’t. (Except for her (good) grandmother and her best friend Juan Paulo, who was a young person himself.) Cecilia cracked open her soul and trauma to explore the breaking and building points of herself, while assuring her younger self that what she experienced was abuse and none of it was her fault. Over and over, she repeated to her younger self that she wasn’t at fault for her own abuse.
Cecilia’s vivid words painted the landscape of the Argentinian town as you got to know the various characters that populated it and how the community worked together and against itself. Some of it was funny and explored the ridiculous nature of a child making the best of what life dealt her.
While Cecilia and I have different stories, I cried multiple times reading this and resonated with her exploration of adult women failing her in childhood and about how you did everything you could to survive (even if was ill-advised, dangerous, over-the-top, or otherwise not your fault). I believe there is something specific that Cecilia describes about the abandonment of queer children to the wolves by adult cishet women, often family members,. Cecilia’s knowing this in herself is one the many reasons she connected and made such an incredible difference in many queer and trans people’s lives. She mothered so many trans people, especially women, in the most joyous moments of our lives as we broke away to become who we are. I wish she had lived to write a sequel about that joy and pain of her adult life.
July 10, 2024
este es uno de esos libros que no sé cómo valorar porque sólo puedo pensar en la historia que cuenta.
y la historia es áspera, cruel, dura y agotadora.
también es una historia valiente y que merece ser leída (además es un libro rápido de leer).
me ha gustado el formato epistolar. creo que a través de los destinatarios es más fácil llegar a "conocer" a cecilia.
en el libro se cuentan muchas cosas y todos esos destinatarios me han despertado sentimientos contradictorios.
creo que es inevitable. como comenta McKenzie Wark, a lo largo de la historia se hace un análisis brillante de cómo las personas nos fallamos unas a otras. pienso que cecilia lo hace desde una posición totalmente alejada del rencor: es capaz de dejar de lado los juicios morales y considerar y comprender que muchos de los males que le ocasionaron en su vida tienen su origen en la forma en la que se estructura la sociedad y los terroríficos vínculos humanos que nacen en ella (tras este ejercicio de empatía, cómo no tener sentimientos contradictorios??????)
y la historia es áspera, cruel, dura y agotadora.
también es una historia valiente y que merece ser leída (además es un libro rápido de leer).
me ha gustado el formato epistolar. creo que a través de los destinatarios es más fácil llegar a "conocer" a cecilia.
en el libro se cuentan muchas cosas y todos esos destinatarios me han despertado sentimientos contradictorios.
creo que es inevitable. como comenta McKenzie Wark, a lo largo de la historia se hace un análisis brillante de cómo las personas nos fallamos unas a otras. pienso que cecilia lo hace desde una posición totalmente alejada del rencor: es capaz de dejar de lado los juicios morales y considerar y comprender que muchos de los males que le ocasionaron en su vida tienen su origen en la forma en la que se estructura la sociedad y los terroríficos vínculos humanos que nacen en ella (tras este ejercicio de empatía, cómo no tener sentimientos contradictorios??????)
January 11, 2026
Chicas quedé bien destrozada AuF.
Es un libro (o una serie de cartas básicamente) muy, muy duro de leer, pero que está inundado de sinceridad. Recoge muchísimo sufrimiento y arrepentimiento en ciertos aspectos, pero también un orgullo y una dignidad que simplemente son para hacerle una estatua a Cecilia... Es tremendo ver cómo usa su voz con muchísimo poder no sólo para denunciar el dolor que otros han causado, sino que también tiene el coraje de reconocer sus propios errores y reconocerse humana (y por ello, a veces orgullosa en exceso o irrazonable o dolida). Pongan una edición en cada biblioteca [coño, ya].
Es un libro (o una serie de cartas básicamente) muy, muy duro de leer, pero que está inundado de sinceridad. Recoge muchísimo sufrimiento y arrepentimiento en ciertos aspectos, pero también un orgullo y una dignidad que simplemente son para hacerle una estatua a Cecilia... Es tremendo ver cómo usa su voz con muchísimo poder no sólo para denunciar el dolor que otros han causado, sino que también tiene el coraje de reconocer sus propios errores y reconocerse humana (y por ello, a veces orgullosa en exceso o irrazonable o dolida). Pongan una edición en cada biblioteca [coño, ya].
March 9, 2024
This is an astonishing, devastating, and often quite funny memoir in letters. It's absolutely tiny and quick to read but is really beautifully written. Gentili is scathing and searching in these letters to the friends, villains, and family of her childhood. The rape of the title is threaded throughout the stories as she puzzles through the ways that her community gave cover to a serial predator and tried to subdue and control her as a young trans person figuring things out. This book is surprising and witty and unique and I loved it!
May 11, 2025
My partner asked if something gets lost because this so personal, & thinking on it: No, no, no— this book is so important & clear BECAUSE it’s so personal. Books need to be more personal, ART needs to be more personal, & this is exactly what I mean by that. The real names, the real events recounted, the unchanged narrative, that is power in the face of being made to have no power. Gentili also writes awesomely so that adds. Felt like I could hear her everytime “darling” or “querido” was written. This is a model memoir & dually can never be done for the first time again
January 2, 2025
Me parece que el gran valor que tiene este libro es el de testimoniar en primera persona y con muchos detalles cómo son las vivencias de las personas trans en los pueblos.
Es duro, dramático y muy real, siento que lo escribió tal cual lo que le salía al pensar en estás memorias. Lo que no me convenció fue el formato carta.
Es duro, dramático y muy real, siento que lo escribió tal cual lo que le salía al pensar en estás memorias. Lo que no me convenció fue el formato carta.
January 31, 2023
Wow wow wow, if I could give this book more than 5 stars I would
March 23, 2024
Perfect in every way!
July 27, 2024
This memoir is going to stick with me for a very long time.
June 29, 2025
instantly canonical; probably the best trans memoir ever. so effortlessly confessional and honest and frequently hilarious. i’ve read this book a couple of times and it always finds me when i need it. one of my absolute favorites!!!
December 14, 2025
Cecilia convirtió todo lo que sufrió en la fuerza motriz de su vida. Estas cartas no son únicamente un medio para liberarse de todo lo que cargó en su infancia; son, en esencia, la transmutación de su alma. En lugar de continuar, ella rompió el patrón.
January 18, 2023
Simply marvelous. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
May 18, 2024
5 stars isn't enough. Cecilia's story is so powerful and important. It was hard to read some of the experiences she went through but her ability to endure and be a support for others is inspiring. Cecilia needs to be remembered and raised up for generations as the archetype of 2slgtbqia+ community leadership and activism.
January 22, 2023
Hard to describe the nature of how gratifying this book was. I dreamed the entire time of hearing her read it out loud - the humor moments brought that out especially, but also the poignant capture-everything lines. I would and will read anything Cecilia Gentili publishes, and shoutout to LittlePuss Press and the expanse of trans narratives in print.
October 11, 2023
this book was devastating, and beautiful. it reminded me to tell the truth. so often it is easy to look at things with a kindness, but this book is an excruciating reminder that the past does not disappear, and that it follows you until you are able to find truth in it. thank you cecilia gentili for making me feel brave
May 7, 2024
I started Cecilias book shortly after she passed which, resulted in taking almost three months to finish. I took many breaks in between the laughs, tears and grief. I believe it took me almost three months because reading this book about her made me feel closer to her while she is now physically far away.
I appreciated the rawness, humor and candidness of Cecilia’s letters. Although Cecilia dedicated her letters to certain individuals, the reader was still able to learn about Cecilia in such an intimate way as Cecilia would paint outside the lines of her immediate relationship with the person to share with the reader her experiences, childhood and queerness living in Galvez.
We miss you, Cecilia.
Thank you for leaving us this gem of a book.
I appreciated the rawness, humor and candidness of Cecilia’s letters. Although Cecilia dedicated her letters to certain individuals, the reader was still able to learn about Cecilia in such an intimate way as Cecilia would paint outside the lines of her immediate relationship with the person to share with the reader her experiences, childhood and queerness living in Galvez.
We miss you, Cecilia.
Thank you for leaving us this gem of a book.
July 17, 2024
This memoir told in letters is not so much confessional nor accusatory but it does point. To the hidden and unspoken that keep people, a whole town even, in their shame and fear. Few are judged but none are spared.
November 25, 2022
An amazing, hilarious, honest, perfect book. I couldnt put it down despite the feeling of reading someone’s private letters. Very grateful to Cecilia for putting this book into the world.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 95 reviews