East of the River: A Memoir of Los Angeles Girlhood

by Guadalupe Rosales

From acclaimed artist and Instagram star Guadalupe Rosales comes this “electrifying” (Los Angeles Times), visually stunning account of growing up in ’90s Los Angeles that weaves stories with snapshots and social media moments.

“Beautiful . . . From poverty, parties and community, to art, freedom and chosen family, from LA to NYC and back again, Rosales captures coming of age in the 1990s with candor, love and hope.”—Ms. Magazine (Best New Feminist Books)

Guadalupe Rosales chronicles her Boyle Heights childhood and adolescence in East LA, finding joy and danger from Commerce Center to Whittier Boulevard. Her frank, intimate prose captures the freedom and fear pulsing through that time and how sisterhood helped her survive it.

After losing loved ones to violence and struggling with drugs and depression, Rosales moved across the country to New York City. A stack of starshots from her youth became a lifeline and eventually inspired her to create two Instagram archives while she was away from Veteranas and Rucas celebrates ’90s LA women, while Map Pointz focuses on the party crew scene. Thanks to her, they’re thriving online communities.

Now this beloved artist—whose work hangs in the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and elsewhere—extends her project of collective memory by sharing her own story of adolescence in a treacherous time, finding herself as an artist far from home, coming to terms with her own queerness, and returning to her beloved Los Angeles transformed. Elegantly designed, the text is interspersed with photography, flyers, Rosales’s own artwork, and social media conversations.

An altar to a past era and a map to the future, this book is a reminder that memory, celebration, and community make us whole.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography Memoir, Latinx

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 8, 2026

Reviews

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

parties without cellphones are so rare that if you have one you either get an event-planning company or a book deal

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
(review to come)

[Sacha · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars

Sometimes, widgets really do the WORK in my TBR. This is a good example of that. I'm not dialed into what's happening on social media at all, so I had never even heard of Rosales when this widget appeared in my inbox. But it was an easy one to select and read for so many reasons, and I am incredibly glad I did.

It's wild to read a memoir of a person who is very close to your own age and who is writing about places and events so close to where you experienced your entire childhood and young adulthood. In some cases, there is also direct overlap. What's wilder is how distinct people's outcomes and access can be when they are only a few miles apart. These are thoughts that coursed through my brain the whole time I read and viewed this piece.

Rosales's memoir focuses on her experience growing up in East LA in the '90s and early 2000s. Anyone famililar with this area will find themselves transported immediately to a particular set of events and specific locations, and this immersive experience becomes almost like VR with the inclusion of so many personal images and constant references to music. This is an incredible archive not just of one person's life so far but also of a whole microcosm. It's not exactly my microcosm, but it's an adjacent one, and I loved being invited into this space.

This is gritty, moving, and at times amusing (some killer captions, including but not limited to one of the author's sisters walking up a set of stairs in front of their mother with her hands on her low back, as Rosales describes that she's hiding her back tattoo from their mom. Iconic). Readers who have ANY connection to the location and culture featured here will find themselves on a complicated journey into the past. Readers who are new to all of this will be lucky flies on a wall.

I immediately started making a list of folks for whom I plan to purchase this book as I was reading it, and I can't think of many higher compliments. This was a memorable experience in an emotional but positive way.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Katryce Campbell at One World for this widget, which I received in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

[Suzette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir is both fascinating and visually engaging, filled with artifacts and photographs that bring Rosales’ story to life. The inclusion of these elements makes the book feel personal and immersive, almost like stepping into her world.

Rosales’ narrative is easy to follow and written in a style that keeps you turning the pages. The stories she shares are heartfelt and meaningful, offering a glimpse into a unique perspective and experience.

Overall, East of the River is a captivating and accessible read that blends storytelling with visual history beautifully. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy memoirs that are both reflective and visually rich.

[julieta · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of Guadalupe Rosales is very much a story about her community. It's about growing up in in East LA in the 90's, and really, I loved seeing this latino community from her insider perspective. The parties, the friendships, the violence, just running from the police. The cruising, the party crews! They were groups who named themselves and attended parties together, I just found it so glamorous! The book has many pictures and you feel like an insider. Rosales is known for her archive project Veteranas and Rucas, where she has put together an incredible archive that shows the stories, the pain, and the beauty of this community. I think this book is important like all histories told from a personal point of view, and she really opened up a world for me. I grew up in Tijuana, which was relatively close to LA, but it was completely different. I had a very superficial idea of what the 90's were like in East LA, and this book is wonderful, through her story you discover a world of stories that give faces and sounds, to a community of people who I just loved reading about. Very much recommended.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guadalupe Rosales grew up in East Los Angeles, a gritty, tough, crime-ridden neighborhood which is full of family, friendships and violence. I had a hard time with this memoir. It was written like a high school essay, the structure was choppy jumping from chapter to chapter without a narrative or flow to it. It was as if the author was having a thought, then jumping to another without connecting them. Guadalupe did a decent job of describing her childhood, it felt the first third of the book was all about her ditching school and partying. I couldn't connect to the second third of the book in NYC and why her sexuality became such a topic. By the final third of the book, I was skimming as I just didn't connect with the author, the level of writing I thought was at a high school level at best, the book didn't appeal to me. Thanks to Net Galley and Random House.

[rafa esparza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lupe’s memoir is an honest, intimate and courageously vulnerable story of growing up, into young womanhood in East LA in the 90s. Growing up brown and queer in Los Angeles comes with its share of having to bearing witness to a cultural production that attempts to reflect our lived experiences often times missing the mark and filtered through gender biases and outsider perspectives- always reaching but hardly ever really touching reality. East of the River is a gift that cuts through a lot of the stereotypes and dated tropes that have dominated mainstream representations of East LA. Lupe’s book is the gift of a mirror that helps us, (for those of us that have grown up in LA) see ourselves anew with a fresh set of eyes.

[Hana Correa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would definitely classify this as a memoir. I was also a 90’s kid, though my childhood wasn’t nearly as rough and tumble as that described by Guadalupe. Her descriptives of life in East LA are gritty and elicit a nostalgia of a time before the rise of social media. This is certainly a story of how Guadalupe, born into poverty, rose above her station and survived while also giving back to the community that shaped her in the most authentic way she could. A tale that is both inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time.

[Abaigh Ritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful story of perception not only of yourself and your culture but growing to realize how you are viewed by the broader country. Lupe gave details about her childhood and how she grew into not only who she is today but how she came to be the artist and who she creates the art she does.
I didn't have prior knowledge of who the author was so her life transition from LA to NYC seemed somewhat disjointed and a shock but it quickly made so much more sense.

[Ashley Alcantar · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s something so beautiful and tender about seeing the women of our communities, their stories, their memories, and their everyday lives, held with so much love and care. This book feels like a hug to all the parts of ourselves we were taught to hide, and to the stories so many women before us had to carry in silence. A reminder that our lives have always been beautiful and our stories have always mattered🩷

[Luv Hot · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love, love, love this book. It described my teenage years perfectly. The party crews, the ditching, the cruising, the star shots, the flyers, lava lamps, glow in the dark stars, drugs, abuse, religion. This was the scrap book my soul needed right now. Lupe touched on so many topics I could relate to. I read the book in less than 24h. I highly recommend it. I also got a chance to meet Lupe at ALTA in Montebello, she's amazing!

[Franc Fernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. One of my favorite things about it is how visual it is. All the photographs, flyers, and artwork really bring the stories to life. It feels like you're going through someone's personal archive, getting a glimpse into a time and place you might not otherwise have access to. I love how Lupe has managed to preserve so much of this history, and how personal it all feels. Such a special book.

[Hana Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very inspiring and nostalgic to read. I grew up going to SoCal every summer to stay with my Latin family and many of her experiences mentioned were what made SoCal feel so special to me as a child and a teenager. Her photography and art are so beautiful, and great at capturing those feelings that those kickbacks and parties would bring.

[Denice Langley · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intriguing story of one woman's life in East LA during the 1990s. Rosales shares the challenges faced by a young woman learning who she was and where her future lay. Each memory built another layer into the person she is today. This book is definitely one to share, especially if you survived the traumas and dramas found across the US in the 1990s.

[Norma Manzanares · Rating 4.25 out of 5]

Rosales writes the way she archives: with care, with defiance, and with a fierce sense of who deserves to be remembered. If you came of age in neighborhoods like East L.A., Washington Heights, Hialeah, or Houston’s East End, the places we call home, whose stories the publishing industry has too often overlooked, you’ll find your own life in these pages.

[Cindi]

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for providing an ARC.

This memoir is very much a view into the 1990's in Southern California. Though I've never been to the area and I'm not of Latin descent, Guadalupe's words and photos brought her story to life.

Recommend to all!

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10 A unique read: like a narrated yearbook. Grateful for this time capsule!