Reservoir Bitches

by Dahlia de la Cerda, Johanna Malcher (Translator)

»Reservoir Bitches« erzählt hart, klug und mit viel schwarzem Humor aus dem Leben mexikanischer Frauen, die kämpfen, tricksen, lügen und töten, die alles tun, um zu überleben.

Ob Narco-Braut, Hausfrau oder Influencerin in Luxury Fashion, ob Auftragskillerin, Prostituierte oder Kleinkriminelle, ob reich oder arm – Dahlia de la Cerdas Heldinnen in »Reservoir Bitches« sind Frauen, die jede Opferrolle ablehnen und die Lösung ihrer Probleme selbst in die Hand nehmen. Ihr Leben ist alles, nur nicht moralisch – aber Dahlia de la Cerdas Literatur will auch gar nicht moralisierend sein. Sie katapultiert uns beim Lesen in eine weit entfernte, aber sehr reale und oft gewalttätige Umgebung.

Die kompromisslosen Stimmen der sehr unterschiedlichen Protagonistinnen verbinden sich in de la Cerdas faszinierendem Debüt zu einem wilden, vielschichtigen, immer wieder auch überraschend zärtlichen Porträt der mexikanischen Gesellschaft aus weiblicher Sicht.

»›Reservoir Bitches‹ ist bitterböse Gesellschaftskritik und schwarze Komödie in einem – und das unüberhörbare Debüt einer der spannendsten neuen Autorinnen Mexikos.« Readings

»Dieses harte, faszinierende und wahrhaftige Buch beschreibt ohne jede Selbstgefälligkeit die vielschichtige Realität junger Frauen in Mexiko.« El País

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Feminism, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Horror, Book Club

140 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Nació, creció y vive actualmente en la Ciudad de Aguascalientes. Estudió la licenciatura en Filosofía. Ha sido empleada de un call-center, un bar y una fábrica de dulces. Ha trabajado como editora de noticias internacionales y como vendedora de Avón, rosas negras en la calle y de ropa de segunda en un tianguis. En 2009 ganó el certamen literario Letras de la Memoria, convocado por el Centro Cultural Los Arquitos. En 2015 fue becaria del Programa de Estímulo a la Creación y al Desarrollo Artístico de Aguascalientes (PECDA). Fue beneficiaria del Programa Jóvenes Creadores del Fonca en las emisiones 2016 y 2018. Ganadora del Premio Nacional de Cuento Joven Comala 2019. Ha participado en las antologías Mexicanas. Trece narrativas contemporáneas (Fondo Blanco, 2021), Los cuerpos que habitamos, ficción y no ficción sobre el derecho a decidir (AN-ALFA-BETA, 2021), Tsunami 2 (Sexto Piso, 2020) y Ecstasy (Astra Magazine, 2022). Escribe una columna de opinión titulada «Desde los zulos» para la revista Reporte Sexto Piso. Es cofundadora y codirectora de la colectiva feminista Morras Help Morras. Habla sin parar en dos podcasts: Escribe como morra y Morras vs fundamentalismos.

Reviews

[Jack Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dahlia de la Cerda writes with pure RAGE, and rightly so. 10 women are murdered EVERY DAY by men in Mexico, yet only 5% of cases ever result in conviction.

These interlinked short stories give voices to those women, before the final story ignites a galvanising call-to-arms which will leave you just as fuming as the author. It's brutal but so compelling, with a bucketload of personality.

[Adina ( back from Vacay…slowly recovering) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book 5/13

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025

Translated to English by Julia Sanches and Heather Cleary

"Mexico is a monster that devours women. Mexico is a desert of pulverized bone. Mexico is a graveyard full of pink crosses. Mexico is a country that hates women".

This is my favourite book from the longlist and I am disappointed it was not shortlisted. I guess it might be a bit too violent in language and facts for the general public and the jurors went for safer options. Reservoir bitches is a collection of short stories, some interconnected and some stand alone. Their common theme is violence towards women in Mexico. Some also include violence from women in response to what they had to endure.

I knew this was going to be a winner when I read it was recommended to fans of Fernanda Melchor. They were right. Really, if you like Melchor, buy this book. I assure you will love it. The style is similar. Now, I want more of both authors.

Some more quotes:

"I was shocked. Did you know that ten women are murdered every day in Mexico? That’s more than one every three hours. Ironic, right? To be telling you this, but that really knocked me on my ass. What were we doing while other women were being raped, beaten to death, and dismembered? I felt freaking awful. I felt like the worst person in the world, because if I had known how dangerous it is to be a woman in this fucked-up country, there’s no way in hell I would have let you leave that party alone. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me."

"There is no room of one’s own when men think our bodies belong to them"

"Every two hours and twenty-five minutes, a woman in Mexico is strangled, raped, dismembered, burned alive, mutilated, beaten to a pulp, and left with bruises and broken bones."

"How can you prove misogyny in court if the murderer says he loved her? Love is misogynist"

"I came looking for live music to dance to but, just my luck, what I found instead was this brutal desert that devours women, carves them up, disappears them, swallows them whole. See nothing, say nothing. But you can’t pull the wool over my eyes".

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

you had me at "In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is Life as they fight, sew, skirt, cheat, cry, and lie their way through their tangled circumstances."

(review to come)

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

* Longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize *

You hear a lot about books that have a strong “voice,” but it takes a special talent to feel the gnash of sharp, gritted teeth through which that voice is propelled. The narrators of Dahlia de la Cerda’s Reservoir Bitches speak with a startling urgency across lucky number 13 harsh tales spilling equal amounts of blood and black humor. These are voices that read as if they are being shouted right into your face—’you’re here for me to tell you how I got where I am, not to hear me spout proverbs and shit. So buckle up’—smelling booze on their breath as the words cut the air between you sharp and swift like a knife pulled in a back alley of the parts of town where ‘houses got smaller and smaller, and the wrong kind of people moved in,’ that makes up the scenery of these stories. Populated by migrants, drug cartels, wannabe Instagram models, assassins, sex workers, politicians and more, these stories and voices have been brought into English by translators Julia Sanches and Heather Cleary for a fluid rendering that earned a spot on the longlist for the International Booker. ‘Women always speak, think, and act from the memory of our pain,’ de la Cerda writes and, plunging the reader into lives of women on the brink of disaster, women trying to survive poverty or living under the violent of patriarchy and transphobia, de la Cerda delivers cutting social critiques in these stories where the narrators often bite back. It is one wild ride.

‘Being a woman means living in a state of emergency.’

The threats of aggressive men and the horrors of femicide lurk within every page of this stunning English language debut of stories. ‘Masculinity is like marzipan: fragile as hell, queen,’ quips a transwoman in Sequins, yet this fragile masculinity also shivers in violent outbursts as life and death are balanced on the edge of a knife for the various narrators. ‘Mexico is a monster that devours women,’ de la Cerda writes, ‘Mexico is a desert of pulverized bone. Mexico is a graveyard full of pink crosses,’ and many of the stories here confronts the long legacy and tragically growing issue of femicides in Mexico where more than 2,500 women have been murdered in the past decade, not to mention the countless number of women who have simply disappeared. The problem became a global news story centering on Ciudad Juárez where the killing of 370 women and girls sparked conversation about gender violence around the world (Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666 is largely based on this). Worse, a 2021 report showed that 94.8% of violent crimes face no legal consequences. As one woman says in the story Yuliana, this is part of why ‘women always speak, think, and act from the memory of our pain.’ This is a pretty harrowing collection where death is always a turn of the page away.

‘I’m angry at the world, and I swear I hate all men. I hate them. I see the assholes who did this to you in every single one of them. And I’ve found ways of channeling my anger.’

The women featured in these stories are backed into a corner, but they often come out swinging. Two seamstresses are forced into violent defense against an intruder in God Forgive Us—one of several stories with recurring characters, God Forgive Us pairs with God Didn’t Come Through which features a woman cutting up a man’s body and displaying it on a bridge—a teen mom cuts off a deadbeat dad in Mariposa de Barrio, a woman becomes an assassin, and more. The drug cartels are lurking through many of these stories and the sudden entanglements of characters often turns deadly, recalling the Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs from which de la Cerda playfully adapted her title. ‘Life’s a bitch. That’s why you gotta rattle her cage, even if she’s foaming at the mouth,’ we are told, and the women here are ready to rattle. ‘You get used to killing,’ says La China, a drug cartel assassin who appears in mutitple stories, ‘I’ve got no qualms about my job, and that’s the whole truth.’ A harsh world is often met with harsh responses here.

‘I started stealing cause life fucked me sideways, mijo’

These fast-talking characters take us through some gritty territory, but de la Cerda keeps the book from descending too bleakly into nightmares by keeping it afloat on some rather wonderful dark humor. There are multitudes of great quips and insults, though the variety in voice and tone is left wanting and it would be difficult to place which speaker fits which story were you to open to a passage at random. Hardly a complaint, however, as there is a really exciting variety of characters behind the sharp voices and we are often told a story from beyond the grave such as the appearance of La Negra, the ghost of a victim of sexual violence in The Smile. There is also plenty of intersectionality in the collection and the issue of transfemicide is approached, particularly in the hard-hitting story Sequins. Violence against trans people has been declared an “epidemic” by the Human Rights Campaign, so much so that there is even a Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20th of each year, and in 2024 there were 36 murders in 2024 and 43 in 2023 of trans individuals in Mexico adding to the issue of femicides. While a tragic issue, it was nice to see de la Cerda address it here.

‘No one is ever ready for the death of someone they love. But this wasn’t death. It was theft. You were stolen, violently ripped from my side…you were one more body in this genocide. Another nameless woman adding to the death count. Another pink cross.’

A harrowing collection that raises awareness on important issues of gender violence while also delivering stories like fists of fury at the patriarchy, Reservoir Bitches is one hell of a read. Fast, ferocious, and often funny despite the hellish content, Dahlia de la Cerda’s prose comes screaming of the page and ensures that the voices of Mexico’s marginalized people are heard loud and clear. And in that there is some much needed comfort.

4/5

‘Soon, even though I was crying, I spread my wings. Just like the song says.’

[NenaMounstro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Se me fue como agua este libro de cuentos de ficción, será porque en cada uno había una historia que podías identificar como algo que ya habías visto en tuiter, como una de esas notas tan comunes en nuestro diario cotidiano, mujeres siempre protagonizando el escándalo, la vergüenza, que es ser mujer en México. Mujeres violentadas ya sea porque así les toca, o porque no tienen de otra. Mujeres usadas, explotadas, mujeres muertas.

Me gustó mucho la manera que Dhalia juega con un personaje en una historia haciéndola protagnista pero en el otro cuento te la vuelves a encontrar pero de personaje secundario.

Siempre pensamos que todas las historias tienen dos lados, dos versiones y Dhalia hace algo increíble con esas dos versiones al hacerlas relatos por separado de esa manera tienes el cuadro completo. Por ahí hay dos historias sobrenaturales que me gustaron mucho porque justo, rompen la tensión sin dejar a un lado el hilo narrativo de todos pero le dan un toque de cereza en el pastel.

Aplaudo que pudiendo hablar de un solo tema con muchas variantes, como es la violencia hacia las mujeres, Dhalia lo hace con diferentes narrativas, en diferentes contextos y cuando sus protagonistas se entrelazan, es muy valioso. Hay historias mejore logradas que otras pero el 90% del libro es una gozada. Mi preferido es el cuento de la chica que se hace ratera que luego se entrelaza con la historia de las señoritas costureras.

El último cuento presiento que es una historia muy personal y es dolorosísimo.

[Meike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025
Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" was indeed released as "Perros de reserva" in Mexico, and Dahlia de la Cerda's original Spanish version of the novel is thus called "Perras de reserva" - and it's not only the title that connects the young author and the infamous screenwriter / director: Both shine when it comes to crafting punchy lines, memorable scenes and characters so sharp they border on elevated, uncanny caricatures of slightly twisted tropes, and both are concerned with rage and revenge. De la Cerda was inspired to write thirteen stories about violence against women in Mexico after a femicide in her family. The women we encounter in her stories have always lived with violence as a given, many of them take actual revenge or do it by telling their stories even from beyond the grave (mind you, in ancient cultures, the number 13 represented femininity, because it corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year, but the lunar calendar was of course more or less abolished by the solar calendar). The protagonists fight against a system that declares them to be disposable.

Every story focuses on a different woman who unapologetically tells her story from her own point of view, and while some texts stand alone, others interlock and offer different perspectives on the same incidents. The collection starts out with a story about a woman living in precarious circumstances who has an at home abortion after a one night stand, and it gives all the details of this reality (the author co-founded Morras Help Morras to fight for safe at home abortions). We hear about a devout Catholic woman who is married off and abused by her husband before falling in love with a priest and developing severe mental issues, and from a 13-year-old mother who is abandoned by the baby daddy. Then there's a text about a young, Black factory worker who is kidnapped, gang-raped, tortured and left to die, and the story of a trans sex worker killed in the streets as well as one about the impact of superstition.

Then there's the multi-perspective story of Yuliana, the daughter of a cartel boss who is pronounced heiress of his empire - we also hear from her friend Regina, daughter of an influential politician, who is murdered by her cartel boyfriend, and Yuliana's bodyguard La China, a sicaria who takes revenge on Regina's killer, while Regina's sister Constanza gets a chapter being busy climbing the social ranks. We hear from women killing a burglar in self-defense, and also get a story from the perspective of the destitute woman who committed the burglary. In the last, particularly impactful and longest chapter, a woman mourns her friend who was killed after a party, adding a poetic elegy for all women killed in Mexico.

I liked the truly Tarantino-esque vibe of this collection, the way female rage is portrayed as a powerful tool in the face of injustice, the edgy female characters and how literature is employed as a weapon. Mexico really has some powerful female literary voices, and Dahlia de la Cerda is easily up there with Selva Almada and Fernanda Melchor.

You can listen to the podcast gang discussing the German translation, also titled Reservoir Bitches, here: https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...

[Mark Porton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Twelve short stories by Dahlia de la Cerda about violence against women in Mexico.

This is a high impact read, the material is violent, and disturbing. Themes here include gpaphic violence, poverty, women without power, narcotics crime, drug use, alcohol, toxic masculinity, and social media addiction.

One thing is clear, when you read this, you will know what the term “Disposable Women” means.

She was stabbed in the genitals. Have you ever heard of a man’s nipples being bitten before he is murdered? Or a man being stabbed in the penis? Getting a stick shoved up his ass? Because I haven’t

The language used by the author here is street talk, it’s gritty and is how you would expect it to be, if listening to these narrators. These stories will shock you. This is important reading and perhaps it needs to be part of essential reading for adolescent boys in high school? Because it’s clear – the number of deaths each year due to violence against women, is not decreasing.

They enjoyed watching me cry and beg. It was in their eyes, in their grunts of pleasure. Freaking assholes, pieces of shit, motherfuckers

The first time he hit me, we were on our way out of a club. He was furious, and I never figured out why. He smacked me hard across the face and didn’t drive me home

Ten women a day are murdered due to gender-based violence in Mexico.

Dahlia de la Cerda (born 1985) is a Mexican writer and activist. In 2025, her book, Reservoir Bitches, was longlisted for the International Booker Prize.

5 Stars

[Nea Poulain · Rating 1 out of 5]

hí-jo-le. de este si me voy a sentar a hablar con calma, pinche libro más culero.

https://www.neapoulain.com/2024/07/pe...

Ahora sí, la reacción no visceral.

Voy a hablar del libro y de nada más que del libro. Si tienen la tentación de venir a contarme cosas sobre su autora en los comentarios probablemente ya las sé o no las sé, y no me interesan. Toda crítica o halago a Perras de reserva acaba viciándose horrible y yo no tengo interés en que otrxs vuelvan un campo de batalla mis comentarios o mis opiniones. También, si tienen tentación de poner terfadas, don't. Único aviso.

Perras de reserva es un libro con trece cuentos, muchos de ellos (la mayoría) relacionados entre sí cuyas protagonistas son mujeres de diferentes estratos sociales y contextos en México. Parte de esto se contextualiza con la manera en la que narran, las palabras que eligen, el modo en el que está escrito el libro. Me llamó la atención, sobre todo, el peso que le dan al uso del lenguaje coloquial que le dan cuando hablan de él. Me parece, por ejemplo, absurda la batalla a la se somete el lenguaje coloquial contra el literario, como si el lenguaje coloquial no pudiera ser también literario o como si el lenguaje literario fuera inaccesible. Ambas son mentiras y me cagan. Como si no nos hubiera demostrado ya un montón de gente en muchos idiomas que el lenguaje coloquial es también literario (podría ponerme a nombrar ejemplos, pero no me alcanzaría el tiempo para desmenuzar lo absurdo de ponerlos a pelear) y como si no nos hubiera dicho Marx que pensar que la gente que trabaja doce horas es incapaz de entender otro tipo de lenguaje no es muy pendejo (no lo dijo así, pero estoy parafraseando y Marx es mi amigo personal, fui a las fiestas de cumpleaños de todos sus hijos).

Escribo todo eso porque quiero hacer un preludio a todo este libro: sí tengo un problema con su lenguaje, pero no tiene nada que ver que este sea coloquial. Eso es secundario. Un libro con los mismos vicios de la prosa que este pero que en vez de usar regionalismos de distintas partes de México usara un lenguaje florido y más adornado me seguiría pareciendo malo en su uso del lenguaje. Lo dice Ursula K LeGuin en From Elfland to Poughkeepsie: el lenguaje importa porque es la materia prima de la literatura. Es el lenguaje el que nos hace sentir que estamos en un lugar muy lejano o desconocido o, al contrario, si lo que quiere evocar es al país en el que vivimos, esquinas que nos hemos topado toda la vida, discursos políticos que hemos escuchado hasta la saciedad. Liliaba Bodoc también lo dice: La Palabra es importante, el cómo nos referimos a las cosas, cómo las elegimos, cómo las comunicamos. No me queda duda de que casi todas las palabras que componen Perras de Reserva fueron elegidas por una razón: estamos ante mujeres que quieren contar su propia historia ellas mismas.

El problema es que, tras varios cuentos, se notan las costuras. El lenguaje coloquial es un escenario, un adorno. La voz en el fondo nunca cambia.

En algunas reseñas vi que de repente, tras varios cuentos, la primera persona ya no era novedosa o ya era cansada. No comparto totalmente la opinión, pero la entiendo, sobre todo cuando me puse a analizar más de cerca lo que estaba pasando, por qué esa aparente perdida de novedad (me dio curiosidad, sí, que hubiera quien dijera que la primera persona era novedosa: ¿de dónde o qué algún narrador en el año de 2024 nuestro señor es novedoso o fresco, si ya lo hemos intentado casi todo en la literatura desde que existe la palabra escrita?). Las descripciones físicas y de la ropa que usan las protagonistas siguen estructuras de oraciones muy parecidas, aunque todas decoradas con un registro distinto del habla. Y así hay varios ejemplos. El registro a veces es no más espolvorear por ahí un par de regionalismos (en algunos casos mal usados, como plebe, en vez de plebes) y esperar que eso y sólo eso sea suficiente para que el lector diga: ah, sí, se trata de esto.

Es difícil replicar registros del habla en la palabra escrita, sí, siempre existe ese riesgo de que sean solo la manera en la que escribes tú (tu registro) con un par de expresiones que conoces y sabes usar, que sean una replica del discurso de alguien más encima de tu literatura y muchas veces cosas así cumplen el truco (al final los escritores no más somos un montón de mentirosos muy hábiles a los que les gusta mucho el lenguaje y experimentamos con él todo el tiempo y sabemos mentir muy bien, porque nuestras mentiras son la realidad de nuestra ficción), pero cuando la cosa cambia y cambia y cambia a lo largo de trece cuentos, parece sólo un decorado barato sobre otra cosa (se nota, por ejemplo, en el último: parece el cuento más honesto y es también de los más personales, por lo que no tiene las costuras tan obvias como los demás).

Es una elección, por ejemplo, el peso que tiene el dinero contra el peso que tiene el feminicidio (y no porque yo crea que tenga que serlo, cada autora pone su libro en el mundo como el libro debe de ser y yo no vengo a escribir reseñas para decirles deberían haberlo escrito diferente). El peso que tiene la ropa. La misma oración una y otra vez nombrando marcas diferentes y estilos diferentes cada vez; es la misma, una y otra y otra y otra y otra vez (la estructura no cambia). Sospecho que el hecho de que haya párrafos enteros del estilo buchón y del estilo de las niñas esposas de políticos y de las mujeres del narco y de todas las mujeres de Perras de Reserva y una de ellas muera tres o cuatro veces en el libro y varias veces se la despache con una frase sin impacto es una elección deliberada que más o menos entiendo. Para cuando me cuenta su historia quiero que me importe y no lo logra porque no parece importarle ni a su mejor amiga, por más que nos quiere convencer que sí (y por más que, de hecho, se venga del asesino). Parece exactamente lo contrario al show, don't tell. Nos dijo, pero nunca nos contó.

Lo que no entiendo es que los registros del lenguaje sean no más un disfraz, una escenografía, porque las frases no cambian en su estructura, no más en el adorno que le ponen. Quizá hay algo que no estoy entendiendo, finalmente, porque unas de las cosas que más se le han reconocido a Perras de Reserva es su uso del lenguaje coloquial. No es sorprendente, ni es novedoso, ni es descubrir ningún hilo negro (y si para algún lector lo fue, sólo puedo decir: este es un estilo que lleva años cultivándose en México y en todo el mundo, es parte del camino lector), ni tiene sentido poner a pelear a quienes prefieren un lenguaje diferente, que quizá no es el que se habla en la calle (malamente llamado literario) a uno coloquial (que también puede ser literario). Sólo me saca de onda que bajo todos los registros que se pretenden retratar en este libro (y que pudo ser uno de sus más grandes virtudes) no hay nada diferente. Escribir las mismas frases una y otra vez cambiándole los modismos y las formas no me demuestra nada, acabas usando al lenguaje (la materia prima de la literatura) como un mero disfraz.

Justo el discutir los asuntos del lenguaje, me llevan a mi segundo punto: debido a su poca variación, la primera persona se hace muy cansada. No es culpa del tipo de narrador. La primera persona es muy versátil en este tipo de historias (personajes que se confiesan ante el lector, que quieren demostrar su agencia, historias donde personajas como estas tienen que ser el centro) y en este libro es una elección deliberada (en Entre los zulos se habla de la elección referenciando a bell hooks y a tener voz una misma, una idea que no necesariamente comparto como escritora, pero que entiendo de donde viene y me parece una muy buena arma al escribir). El problema es que cansa porque los focos nunca cambian. Los mejores cuentos son aquellos que se salen de la narrativa de la obsesión con el dinero y el poder que tienen muchas de estas mujeres, no porque esas sean malas historias qué contar, sino porque no varían en sus costuras. La historia se repite una y otra vez con escenarios y acciones cambiadas, pero para gran parte de estas mujeres la única obsesión es el poder o el dinero y todas te lo cuentan más o menos igual en el fondo.

Eso cansa. Ante todo, eso cansa. Yo puedo creer que a este libro le faltan comas y le sobran puntos y seguido, pero no es sólo eso lo que agota al leerlo. Es la repetición. En el caso del feminicidio narrado (contado en una frase o en dos cada vez) se nota como pierde fuelle y cómo, antes de llegar a él, antes de que la víctima pueda hacer lo que quiera con esa narración, ya perdió todo su fuelle. Si acaso, el cuento con el que cierra el libro es uno que podría tener mucha más fuerza (porque es más visceral, porque parece más cuidado), sino pecara de tener pedazos que en vez de narración son exposición de problemas sociales (y no creo que no tengan que estar, sólo creo que hay que pensar en el uso de las palabras y por qué las ponemos y en cómo ponerlas, cosa que es, a mi parecer, lo que le falla terriblemente a este libro).

Si me preguntan si lo recomiendo o no: claramente no. Pero yo soy una única persona y lectores hay muchos. Hay de todo en la viña del señor y que un libro no resuene con nosotros (o nos parezca terrible) no es una condena, sino sólo un testimonio de nuestros caminos lectores. Pero no, no lo recomiendo. Creo que como retrato de la literatura mexicana actual es un retrato pésimo, pero yo pienso casi siempre eso sobre muchos libros actuales que hablan de los temas que trata este libro (no es la excepción: es la regla). No resueno con estas formas de acercarse al realismo ni a la violencia, pues. Si lo leen, ahí me cuentan que opinan.

[Flo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Longlisted for International Booker Prize 2025 - This is the perfect companion piece to Emilia Perez.

Maybe that's your mission. To gather the bones of dead women, to piece them together and tell their stories, and then to let them run free.

This collection of quasi-connected short stories is so casual in its depiction of violence against Mexican women that, at times, I think it fails to deliver its message or evoke emotion. The tone helps show us this world where crime and injustice are inescapable, and (even as a woman) the only way to defend yourself is to attack.

However, I think most of the narratives are forgettable on their own. The connections are weak and sometimes only make the book feel even more repetitive. Even though the last piece does some heavy lifting for the entire collection, I don’t think it does enough to elevate the individual tales—only the overall theme.

[Sadie Hartmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

See my updates as I worked through this collection of stories centered on the female experience in Mexico. The stories range from feminine rage, feral girls running wild, the girlfriends of narcos, sex workers, victims of violence—femicide
Themes: girlhood, motherhood, marriage, sex work, abortion, poverty, murder, SA, trauma, female friendships, etc
A rollercoaster of emotions. More soon.

[Óscar Moreno (OscarBooker) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro me dejó con la piel chinita y un nudo en la garganta.

La verdad no sé qué decir de estos cuentos, trece en total, más que los recomiendo profundamente. Temas brutales y desgarradores que miles de mujeres viven en México y gran cantidad de países en el mundo.

Hubo dos que hasta me tuve que tomar un tiempo para asimilarlos: “Lentejuelas” y “La Huesera” ¡Brutales!

[enzoreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

hashtag j’adooore omg

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bundle reflecting the contemporary female experience in Mexico. While grim in themes, with 10 women murdered every day, the language in the bundle is fun and edgy, and there are female friendships that form a counterweight to the often abusive love affairs.
Being a woman means living in a state of emergency.

Dahlia de la Cerda conjures effectively a world where Instagram, memes and Facebook form the background to life. From rich blond girls from political families to factory workers who are short and black up to narca new money girls full of implants, Reservoir Bitches covers a broad range of narratives. Money and good looks however form no protection against male violence. Music serves a big role throughout the bundle. Such a timely and sobering read as well, with the recent horrifying news of literal extermination camps with crematoriums being run by Mexican cartels: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c...
The last story is longest and I think one of the best in the bundle, full of rightful rage, and in general I think the bundle would have been better if it had a bit more longer stories. I also am a bit unsure if the story of Yuliana from all angles adds much.

Nevertheless an interesting bundle, bringing to life statistics of femicide we grown desensitised towards.

Parsley and Coca-Cola
We start of with an Opus Dei university girl on the pension of her dead mom, watching Mean Girls, Legally Blonde and Miss Congeniality while undergoing her abortion. 600 pesos (roughly £25) being too expensive to get a safe abortion medicine, leading to a youtube rabbit hole of alternative treatments, including an enema of parsley and Coca-Cola.

Yuliana
Women, fam. We can be mean as hell.
A girl grows up doing target practice on Moët bottles (until she accidentally shoots the gardener), surrounded by security and going to elite schools. Next in line to head a crime syndicate, with a wish for revenge. She is a narca, new money, including a lion cub, and a capo as father: He’s a loving and good husband. Sure, he’s also a businessman who defends his plaza by decapitating rivals and shooting down choppers.

God Forgives Us
We just saw the machete- and given the choice between grief striking our house or someone’s else’s, well, wouldn’t you want it to be theirs?
Self defence and violence in an informal settlement.

Constanza
Know what I mean? Zero Angela Merkel, all Michelle Obama.
Regina (from Yulia) is the sister to this narrator who experiences a meteoric rise to fame as the potential next first lady of Mexico. Then troubling facts from her past start to emerge, for which she seeks a radical solution.

God didn’t come through
Life’s a bitch. That’s why you gotta rattle her cage, even if she’s foaming at the mouth.
The girl from God forgive us is given a voice. Crime pays, until it doesn’t.

La China
The security detail from Yuliana makes an appearance. Again we have abject poverty leading people to drugs and violence as only option to get ahead in the world.

The Rose of Sharon
Rather a short and random horror story of religious woman falling to lust and murder.

Regina
A luxury lifestyle always comes with costs, in this case 800.000 Instagram followers and the whole Versace store do not protect the friend of Yuliana from murder.

Mariposa de Barrio
A 13 year old mom handles 5 years of her man cheating and breaking up with her on Whatsapp

The Smile
But I got the math wrong: life’s a bitch
Strongest story in the bundle in my view. Female abuse turns into a vampiric revenge story.
This could be a brilliant Marvel story. Or Quentin Tarantino like.

Sequins
Quite similar to The Smile, but in this case a transexual woman is murdered.

Playing with fire
Tells the story of a bruja, a supernatural healer and curser with Facebook page and a massive following. Doña Gonorrea experiences a neighbourly dispute which she tries to resolve with ever increasing uses of black magic.

La Huesera
Longest story of the bundle, telling the story of a friend who mourns her dead friend. So many hard hitting quotes here:
Sadness is rebellion.

Love kills.

Disposable motherhood.
Disposable women.
I killed her because I loved her.
I killed her because she was mine.
How can you prove misogyny in court if the murderer says he loved her? Love is misogynist.

Being a woman means living in a state of emergency.

Did you know that ten women are murdered everyday in Mexico?

You were one more body in this genocide.

Mexico is a monster that devours women.
Mexico is a desert of pulverised bone.
Mexico is a graveyard full of pink crosses
Mexico is a country that hates women.

Disposable women. Decapitated women. Strangled women. Dismembered women. Raped women.

My rebellion is that I want to live.

Longlist International Booker Prize 2025 ranking
1 Under the Eye of the Big Bird - 4.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2 On the Calculation of Volume I - 4.5 stars rounded down, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
3 The Book of Disappearance - 4 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
4 Eurotrash - 4 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
5 Perfection - 3.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
6 A Leopard-Skin Hat - 3.5 stars rounded down, review here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
7 Reservoir Bitches - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
8 Heart Lamp: Selected Stories - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
9 Solenoid - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
10 Hunchback - 3 stars, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
11 On a Woman's Madness - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
12 Small Boat - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
13 There's a Monster Behind the Door - 2.5 stars rounded up, review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

That's why I live to the max, feel to the max, spend to the max, and earn to the max... I kill to the max too. That's why I am where I am.

This fierce, unapologetic and in your face set of linked stories set in Mexico is a welcome response to the topic of femicide so often taken up by Latin American women writers (Dead Girls, for example, is name-checked). It's not that this evades the subject - it doesn't - it's that it takes a whole new position on responses to violence: it hits back... and hard.

The mostly (though not all) young women in these tales have their own status within a brutal economy: Yuliana inherits her father's position as a drug lord; her chief security detail, La China, is a renowned assassin with a reputation of her own. When Yuliana's best friend is shot by her narco boyfriend, the story doesn't end there.

The interconnectedness of the stories where we hear a tale from one perspective then have it reopened in a later tale through the narrative of another woman on the margins of the first does all kinds of things here: it gives us a wider view of the world of the book; it plays tag with subjectivities; but it also changes the form as individual stories open up and segue into other narratives - the book situates itself somewhere between a collection and a novel.

If I wanted to be picky, I'd say that the voices of the different female 1st person narrators tend to sound the same: ferocious, comfortable in their own skin, taking no nonsense. There are commonalities of music, of the freedom of dancing, of friendship and betrayals. And while not all the narrators have power, they do manage to resist the teleology of death: 'Sequins' told by a trans woman is one of the stories that snatches a kind of triumph from brutality and hate.

There is an acute feminist agenda here: 'there is no room of one's own when men think our bodies belong to them' but the antidote is the pure kinetic energy and electric sense of female life than emanates from these pages which is exceptional - a short read but a vivid, amoral, tour de force - a writer to watch for fans of Fernanda Melchor.

[Nat K · Rating 5 out of 5]

*** Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025 ***

“Being a woman means living in a state of emergency.”

From the word go this book gets you in the solar plexus. There is no second gear with any of these thirteen interrelated stories. It’s full speed and in your face from page one. Whether the indulged daughter of a cartel capo, a houseful of spinster seamstresses surviving a home invasion or a pregnant 13-year-old working 12 hour shifts in a shoe factory to make ends meet, these stories are eye opening. The machismo the women face regardless of their socio-economic status is staggering.

There’s a crazy blend of religion, superstition, shamans and women and girls of all ages doing what they can to survive. What they must. The stories are raw, the humour dark and so many of the situations are just damn sad. A few of the stories are told by the ghosts of some of the women and a trans woman after their deaths. It’s stark. And unbearably raw and honest.

“Her boyfriend was a murderer.
Her husband was a murderer.
Her lover was a murderer.
Love kills.”

The fact that Mexico continues to have one of the highest rates of femicide in Latin America is sickening and appalling. But how to stop something that has been ingrained in some minds as culturally acceptable when clearly it is anything but.

“La Huasera has a special hobby, which is to collect the bones of wolves. Once she has a full skeleton, she lights a fire and assembles the wolf’s body. Then she sings. She sings and sings. And then - what sorcery is this? - flesh and fur cover the bones, and wolf is off and running down the street. But wait, that’s not even the craziest part. The craziest part is that as the wolf runs, howling at the moon, it transforms into a woman. A woman who sprints away laughing.”

The vision of this is mind blowing. What powerful writing! It's so vivid. Their spirits are set free. This part really will always stay with me. When you read this collection, you’ll understand why. It’s so poignant it hurts.

This début is quite tiny coming in at around 190 pages, but it’s packed with attitude and reality that will make you think.

“There is no room of one’s own when men think our bodies belong to them.”

Seriously amazing writing. Even if this doesn't sound like something you would usually read, I cannot recommend it enough. Dahlia de la Cerda is a voice that needs to be heard and has done an amazing job of writing about truths we’d rather not know about.

[Isabela. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me costó un poquito acostumbrarme a tanta jerga mexicana. Ni siquiera en la vida real he llegado a escuchar tanto fierro pariente, viejón y demás pero supongo que eso se debe a que soy del sur y no del norte. (?) Jajajaja. Es broma, es broma. Pero de donde yo vengo escucho más groserías que apodos de ese tipo.
Quitando eso, lo empecé ayer en la noche y lo terminé hoy por la mañanita, estuvo muy, muy, muy entretenido. La autora tiene una habilidad impresionante para darle voz propia a cada narradora. Podía imaginarlas por completo. Pinté a mi vecina, a las amigas de las colonias, a las ricas que pasan por la calle, a las solitarias que vagan por los parques. Admiro mucho las voces tan distintivas que le dio a cada una. Eso me gustó mucho.

Mis historias favoritas fueron: Dios nos hizo el paro, La sonrisa, Lentejuelas y La huesera. Estos dos últimos me dieron un montón de ganas de llorar, la verdad.

Le veo mucho futuro a Dahlia! Realmente sabe escribir personajes reales. No se sienten pre-fabricados, te los puedes imaginar bien facilito.

[Carolina Maldonado · Rating 2 out of 5]

La temática de este libro es imprescindible. Contar las vidas de las mujeres de este país, con todo su horror, es valiente y necesario. Sin embargo, todos lo personajes me resultaron unidimensionales, la primer persona cansa y aburre antes de la mitad del libro, y las voces me parecieron falsas, como un recurso únicamente para dar un discurso y no para construir personajes más complejos. Me parece muy importante hablar de la realidad de las mujeres en México, pero como literatura, me pareció malo.

[Lucinda Garza Zamarripa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

Dahlia de la Cerda es una máster de la oralidad, de hacer que podamos casi que escuchar a las protagonistas de sus relatos contar sus historias, cada una bien definida, bien distinta a las demás.

No puedo creer que esperé tanto para leer esto, pero lo bueno es que llegué y ahora conozco el humor negro (balanceado con una profunda sensibilidad) de esta autora. Qué maravilla.

[Juan Naranjo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un puñado de mujeres nos cuenta su historia. Y en sus monólogos (orales, llenos de atajos y circunloquios) se resume quienes son y, con ellas, el mundo en el que viven. PERRAS DE RESERVA es un catálogo de vivencias y violencias, el relato de un país, la radiografía de una sociedad a través de las mujeres que lo habitan. PERRAS DE RESERVA es México.

Dahlia de la Cerda ha parido un libro magistral. La autora tiene una capacidad inigualable para retratar con el lenguaje; sus palabras son pinceladas que condensan mundos. Solo quien sabe mucho de literatura y de lenguaje es capaz de usar la oralidad para reflejar edades, clases sociales, estados de ánimo, procedencias.

PERRAS DE RESERVA me ha dejado boquiabierto. De lo mejor que he leído este año.

[Yeni López · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tengo sentimientos encontrados con este libro.

Si sigues a Dahlia en redes se puede generar mucha expectativa sobre el cómo iba a configurar a las mujeres de sus cuentos, sobre todo porque ella ha sido muy exigente de no ser condescendiente o paternalista al momento de crear historias que surgen de estos contextos o de cómo ver a las mujeres reales en las que se basan.

En ese sentido, ella no lo hace y es muy valioso. A cada una les otorga una estructura narrativa, compleja, contrastante. Sus acciones incomodan pero nos empuja a entender de dónde vienen sin victimizarlas. Quizás las justifica un poco y eso me parece un poco problemático; pero nos brinda un contexto bien definido y no sólo deja que nosotras podamos tomar una postura frente a la violencia que viven y accionan, también nos hace cuestionarnos por qué tomamos esa postura, lo cual me parece importantísimo.

Sin embargo, las voces de las mujeres de cada uno de los cuentos carece de variación, de algo identitario más allá del habla que reconocemos en cierto grupo social. Esto es muy extraño porque el uso de estos "modismos" no es artificial, ni excesivo. Hay algo más profundo que hace sentir cansancio hacia la mitad del libro. Es probable que la primera persona se agote muy pronto.

Por otro lado, me gusto cómo se van entrelazando los cuentos que comparten personajes, es un detalle muy importante porque nos permiten ver diversas posturas de un mismo conflicto, pero además de eso creo que se trata de darle un lugar a la voz de cada mujer que aparece en el libro.
Todas tienen la oportunidad de contarnos su historia, y eso como enunciación es muy poderoso. Me disgusta un poco se vea esto como una señal de que hubiera funcionado como novela, porque es una manera de hacer un poco de menos la forma del cuento.

Creo que como cuento funciona y no hay necesidad de hacerlo crecer, pues la novela no es la única cajita literaria para entralazar historias.

[Maxwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

[3.5 stars]

A chorus of strong voices exploring the trials and tribulations of womanhood in Mexico, especially in regards to violence, trauma, and vengeance. Each story takes on a new lens of what it means to be a woman and navigate such a tumultuous environment. These many 'I's blend together to create a powerful narrative, considering their varied backgrounds and experiences.

While I did find some of the stories to blend together so much that they started to be a bit too similar, each was incredibly readable, with a clear tone of voice and moments of humor and horror. The first story was a gut punch and the last story in particular was a beautiful and harrowing denouement.

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this is basically Virginie Despentes (attitude, humour) in a country where social inequality, poverty, organised crime and femicide are huge problems. This book has so much energy and personality. And I knew it was going to be interesting from the first page, seeing how that rebellious punk outlook - and being the 'messy woman' of 2010s English-language fiction and TV - works in, and translates to, an environment where life is a lot more dangerous for women than in western Europe.

It often adds up to this:

"But life’s a gamble and I went all in, ’cause why the fuck not."

And unfortunately sometimes this:

"It was one of those moments when you think you’re cheating death, but really the joke’s on you."

There is so much propulsive, instinctive lifeforce in the keeping-going-ness of many of these characters.

Also keeping some of them going is religion, belief in the supernatural and an afterlife. The psychological necessity of that in a riskier environment, with a higher death rate, is palpable here. Yet, in Reservoir Bitches thinking that way is not always useful to the living, and sometimes you (would) survive by turning to rationalism.

My favourite of the stories was 'Playing with Fire'. It has a structure some may find clichéd, but it's quite a long time since I'd read anything of that type, and it's the only one like that in the collection.


When these stories are in dialogue with other literature it's natural and never laboured.

The Despentes influence is seamless and appropriate, the only arguable drawback (as also found in some of Despentes' own work) that real people like this are not necessarily as self-aware as these narrators.

A character is recommended to read Selva Almada by a psychologist. (Not having read Almada myself, I don't know what other influences she may have here. But GR friends who know her work will soon enough read this and make some observations.)

A chapter in 'La Huesera' has to be connected to 'The Part About the Crimes' in Bolaño's 2666, yet it emerges naturally from a character's internet search. I say 'connected' because, although Bolaño wrote that twenty years earlier, he was a man, living in Spain at the time, even if he had previously been a journalist and activist in Mexico - and de la Cerda is a Mexican woman activist who has worked in low paid jobs and whose cousin was a victim of a femicide. "Inspired by" feels all wrong - she is closer to the events and the risk even at time of writing; she would have had something to say about it all regardless.


I did hear it said during the 2010s that too much of Mexican culture that was successful abroad was about poverty, narcos and other crime, and this was (negatively) stereotyping the country. And in the last few years, poverty has been reduced in Mexico. Rightly or wrongly, it does seem that some of the most exciting Mexican literary writing, coming to the attention of awards in the Anglosphere, is set in these worlds (e.g. Fernanda Melchor's Hurricane Season). Never having been to Mexico, and not knowing people from the country (there are not a lot of Latino/a/x people in the UK outside London), I really don't know to what extent some people live untouched by these aspects of life, as in there was never anyone from school, or an old job, or a distant relative, and never been a victim of crime themselves - or if it is the background hum and risk that I get the impression it is even for people in boring middle class circles, though more so in some regions than others.

But as it seems conditions are likely to get worse for plenty of people in countries around the world, there is something inspiring about many of these characters, and the drive that permeates the book.

[spillingthematcha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Female rage>>

[Iris L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estos cuentos son poderosos, adictivos, incómodos y sumamente dolorosos y eso hizo de esta lectura una experiencia exquisita.

Cada uno de ellos está contado en primera persona por estos personajes femeninos que son audaces, valientes y sobresalientes; me encantó como algunos se llegan a entrelazar pero no se mezclan.

La lectura es rápida y cada historia llega al clímax y termina de manera magistral que te deja lista para la que sigue, imposible parar, me lo leí de un solo y siendo muy honesta hubiera querido más.

Le doy todas las estrellas posibles, sin peros y con toda la convicción.

[Roberto Negrete Romero · Rating 1 out of 5]

Obra decepcionante porque no hay valor en las historias mismas ni en el modo en que están escritas.
Es evidente que los temas que se abordan la autora sólo los conoce a través de la televisión, las series, los periódicos o los noticieros, por tal razón la mayoría de las historias son caricaturas de los lugares más comunes sobre narcotráfico, migrantes, violencia contra la mujer, identidad LGBT+, etc.
Queda claro que la escritora es una persona que pone mucha atención a los detalles que la rodean, pero las historias son una colección sin propósito; no hay talento al contar historias porque sólo quiere contar todo lo que ha escuchado sobre un tema o reiterar los elementos más trillados, los personajes que "crea" (o que en realidad copia de cualquier otro medio) tienen vida en función de todo lo que la escritora sabe del tema, por eso son unidimensionales.
Es difícil escribir esto porque la opinión no tiene nada que ver con la importancia de los temas que aborda, el punto es que no por abordar esos tópicos cualquier cosa que se escriba deba considerarse relevante.
Hay una notable diferencia entre todas las historias y el relato "mariposa de barrio" donde se nota que la escritora ha estado verdaderamente rodeada de situaciones de ese tipo, en ese cuento sí se nota que existe un personaje que respira y tiene motivaciones, todos los demás son textos sin alma que incluso resultan ridículos (principalmente los que conectan con el tema del narcotráfico).

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize

He killed her because she was pregnant.
He killed her because she didn't want an
abortion.
He killed her because she wanted an
abortion.
Disposable motherhood.
Disposable women.
I killed her because I loved her.
I killed her because she was mine.
How can you prove misogyny in court if the murderer says he loved her? Love is misogynist.

Reservoir Bitches, a collection of 13 short stories, is translated by the superstar team of Julia Sanches (Eva Baltasar, Munir Hachemi, Gabriela Wiener, Claudia Hernández), nominated for the Booker for the third consecutive year, and Heather Cleary (Roque Larraquy, Fernanda Trías, Brenda Lozano), and the in-your-face prose is a striking feature of this work.

The original Perras de reserva by Dahlia de la Cerda was published in 2022, although an earlier version in 2019 included only the first 9 stories in the collection, the latter 4 added when it was republished.

The author has said her aim 'was to show a variety of diverse women, in very adverse, complex contexts, and to have them different voices from those that had been heard in literature' and explains her background on her website as follows (ChatGPT translation):

Nací, crecí y actualmente vivo en Aguascalientes, una ciudad de un millón y medio de habitantes en México, profundamente católica y conservadora. Crecí en colonias populares y barrios, y pasé parte de mi infancia en la sierra de Jalisco, en una comunidad con una relación compleja con el crimen organizado. Estas vivencias han marcado mi mirada y mi escritura. Soy acompañante de abortos autogestionados, tengo una estética cholo-gótica, amo el terror y me apasiona explorar la violencia en sus múltiples formas. Provengo de una familia ajena al arte: mi mamá y mi papá se dedicaban a la administración de bares y cantinas.

I was born, raised, and currently live in Aguascalientes, a city of one and a half million people in Mexico, deeply Catholic and conservative. I grew up in working-class neighborhoods and barrios and spent part of my childhood in the mountains of Jalisco, in a community with a complex relationship with organized crime. These experiences have shaped my perspective and my writing. I am a companion for self-managed abortions, I have a cholo-gothic aesthetic, I love horror, and I am passionate about exploring violence in its many forms. I come from a family unrelated to the arts—my mother and father worked in the management of bars and cantinas.

The first 9 stories major on the violence both inflicted on, and, in revenge, inflicted by, women.

Four of the 9 - Juliana, Constanza, La China, and Regina - are linked and give the first person account of four young women linked, in different ways, with a drug lord - one, Regina, dies at the hands of an abusive step-son of a para-military, but then is brutally murdered in a revenge killing by La China, the bodyguard of Juliana, daughter of the drug lord and heir to the cartel.

And there I was, still broken up over Regina's death. I got to thinking: "I'm filthy rich, next in line to one of the most powerful capos in the world, my best friend is an assassin who works for a murderous militia, and I'm here crying because some fucking dipshit killed my Regina. What a little bitch. Malverde, drag me to hell."

One night we got wasted, and I dropped it on her. I told her I wanted her to take that fucker out and offered her a heap of cash, early retirement, and a corrido. La China was already rolling in dough and had no interest in retiring, but she liked the idea of a corrido, can you believe it?

I found out later she had a special hatred for dudes who fuck with women. She told me that every time she heard about one of those assholes, she felt like she was the one getting beaten and took it personal.

The aesthetic here links to the novel's title - the original title 'Perras de reserva' is just one vowel removed from 'Perros de reserva', as the Tarantino movie was named in China, but Reservoir Bitches works equally well.

But if this is a setting of those with wealth and power, or at least access to it, two more paired stories, God Forgive Us and God Didn’t Come Through, tell either side of those with less wealth, a group of three spinsters who, in self-defence, kill what they assume is a young boy trying to break into their house, but who turns out to be a young woman who dresses very differently to the plastic-surgery enhanced designer-clothes wearing princesses of the 4 linked stories.

Ever since I was a kid, I've been real strict about my threads. All that bullshit about dresses and princesses is for daddy's girls.

I'm vata loca to the bone: Ben Davis pants with the pleat down the middle, XXXL checkered shirts, and starched white crew socks pulled up to my calves. Braids, blue hankie, sunglasses. I stuck on a hairnet whenever I headed out to work so I'd look like a banger and dudes would shit their pants. And it worked, mijo. One time I drew a huge 13 on my face with a sharpie, then headed out with my janky 13 and baggy pants. The first dude I stepped to went white as a sheet and handed over his wallet in a blink: "Sup, bitch. Want a taste? Didn't think so." I was a thief, a gangsterette with principles.

The three stand-alone stories of the original 9 were for me the weakest - Parsley and Coca-Cola (a story of a self-abortion); The Rose of Sharon (a woman slaughters her son, thinking this is God's will) and Marioposa de Barrio (a young woman breaks up with her boyfriend over WhatsApp). This last does make a particular feature of something that runs through the collection - music, mostly Mexican, and from a variety of genres, often more traditional / old fashioned than one might expect from the collection.

I'd strongly recommend sampling this playlist a reader has very helpfully assembled on Spotify.

The final 4 stories, added to the 2022 collection, dial up the supernatural side of the horror, particularly the first three The Smile, Sequins and Playing with Fire. The Smile has a murder victim coming back to half-life and taking bloody revenge on her rapists; the narrator of Sequins, a transgender woman, is also brutally killed and resurrected, but walks off affirmingly into the sunset with others such as murdered Argentinian transgender activist Diana Sacayán. Playing with Fire has someone envoking the devil against their annoying neighbour:

The first time he answered my call, he was dressed as El Charro Negro, the second as El Carín, and the third as Juan Gabriel.

This time he showed up in ostrich boots, a gold shirt, and a hat, with a gold tooth and a gem-studded pistol. "What can I do you for?" he asked, his cowboy outfit melting like wax to reveal a red furry back, chicken feet, and goat horns. "I want you to take my piece-of-shit neighbor Teresa to your kingdom or send her back where she came from.

The final story La Huesera is the collection's strongest for me, and also rounds it off brilliantly. The title is taken from Selva Almada's journalistic non-fictional novel Chicas muertas, translated as Dead Girls by Annie McDermott, which is explicitly referenced in the text and quoted as advice by a psychologist to the story's narrator (slightly disappointingly the English quotation doesn't use McDermott's translation).

As with Almada's novel, this story concerns the victim of a femicide and is narrated by her friend in the form of a letter addressed to her as she processes her grief.

She first recollects their time together, including the last time she saw her, both goths but with a secret taste for more sentimental music (as well as wannabe punks PXNDX).

I think of you every time I hear a song by Vagón Chicano. I remember the distant look in your eyes. The way you'd pretend you weren't peeking out the window to see if Señor Vikingo was coming. Sometimes he disappeared for a whole week, but he always came back, making that weird noise he called his grizzly bear roar. And you would race out to meet him. One Saturday you said to me: "This time he won't come back." And we got wasted listening to that Vagón track over and over, the one that goes: Don't leave me without saying a word.

But whispering, though, because we had reputations as goth baddies to protect.

On their last night they were together at a club featuring 80s metal, including Iron Maiden and Spanish band Ángeles del Infierno, but the narrator's friend never made it home and her bosy was found some weeks later, raped, tortured and murdered. Which leads the narrator into a realisation of how prevalent femicide is in Mexico:

Every two hours and twenty-five minutes a woman in Mexico is strangled, raped, dismembered, burned alive, mutilated, beaten to a pulp, and left with bruises and broken bones. A woman's body, another woman. Some woman, a nameless woman.

A powerful collection which grew on me as I read it, and, as mentioned, brilliantly translated.

A mini playlist of my favourite songs.

The judges' take

Reservoir Bitches is a blisteringly urgent collection of interconnected stories about contemporary Mexican women. It absolutely bangs from the first page to the last. It’s extremely funny but deadly serious and we loved the energy and flair of the dual translators’ approach. It packs an enormous political and linguistic punch but is also subtle, revelatory and moving about the ways in which these women hustle, innovate, survive or don’t, in a world of labyrinthine dangers. This book weaves the riotous testimony of the living and the dead to create an expletive-rich feminist blast of Mexican literature.

[Michelle Cuéllar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entre historias de mujeres que se vengan, sufren, mueren, aman y pasan por un duelo; Perras de Reserva es un libro lleno de cuentos que no vas a poder dejar de leer. Jamás me habían dado escalofríos por un texto hasta que leí el ultimo cuento. ¡Háganse un favor y léanlo!

[Malice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Algunos de estos relatos me dejaron helada, sobre todo porque no es ficción lo que aquí se cuenta, aunque ojalá lo fuera. Me queda claro que este país es una fosa común y revuelve el estómago el nivel de violencia.

Al final lo subí a cuatro estrellas, porque es de esos libros que se te quedan en la memoria por mucho tiempo, es un libro bastante recomendable.

[Mafer González · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pues bien, son 13 historias relevantes y atemporales, que reflejan la desgarradora realidad de un país que nos penaliza, nos humilla, nos abandona... mi gran problema es que en algunos relatos sentía que estaba leyendo algo de Wattpad, y no por el lenguaje coloquial (eso lo hizo Fernanda Melchor, por ejemplo, y le salió exquisito), simplemente porque la narración se sentía plana y superficial.

[leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

a short story collection examining womanhood in mexico, all connected by the theme of violence. the narrative voice of all the stories made them feel quite similar, but i still thought this was a good, short collection. my favourite story was the final one called ‘la huesera’, which is a very powerful and moving account of femicide in mexico.