Love War Stories

by Ivelisse Rodriguez

Puerto Rican girls are brought up to want one thing: true love. Yet they are raised by women whose lives are marked by broken promises, grief, and betrayal. While some believe that they’ll be the ones to finally make it work, others swear not to repeat cycles of violence. This collection documents how these “love wars” break out across generations as individuals find themselves caught in the crosshairs of romance, expectations, and community.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Latinx, Feminism, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Womens

176 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2018

About the author

Born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Ivelisse Rodriguez grew up in Holyoke, Massachusetts. She earned a B.A. in English from Columbia University, an M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College, and a Ph.D. in English-creative writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Her short story collection, Love War Stories, is forthcoming from The Feminist Press in summer 2018. Her fiction chapbook The Belindas was published in 2017. She has also published fiction in All about Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color, Obsidian, Label Me Latina/o, Kweli, the Boston Review, the Bilingual Review, Aster(ix), and other publications. She is the founder and editor of an interview series, published in Centro Voices, the e-magazine of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, focused on contemporary Puerto Rican writers in order to highlight the current status and the continuity of a Puerto Rican literary tradition from the continental US that spans over a century. She was a senior fiction editor at Kweli and is a Kimbilio fellow and a VONA/Voices alum. She is currently working on the novel ‘The Last Salsa Singer’ about 70s era salsa musicians in Puerto Rico.

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ivelisse Rodríguez does a great job of capturing the deep yearnings and unrequited loves of the many Puerto Rican girls that come to life in this short story collection. I appreciated that Rodríguez portrays her characters with emotional nuance, showing them in their youthfulness while giving voice to perspectives we often do not see in fiction. I liked her honest depiction of the struggles these girls go through, such as how they are taught to prioritize romantic love, how they experience gross sexualization and fetishization at a young age, and how they fight between assimilating to Americanness while wanting to resist whiteness and maintain their own cultural identity. Love War Stories centers on the intergenerational transmission of love and romance, as well as how the focus on that form of desire often disrupts girls’ and women’s lives.

I feel like I often give three-star ratings to short story collections, especially when I enjoy the concept yet do not find the majority of the stories that emotionally affecting. That’s how I felt with Love War Stories; I appreciated the themes though I didn’t find myself deeply drawn into the characters’ lives. Rodríguez’s writing flows well though, and I finished this book in about a day.

[BookOfCinz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yoew every single story in this collection is straight flames!

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know how much I love a great short story collection, bonus points if it is set in the Caribbean.

I am constantly looking to read short stories and I randomly added LOVE WAR STORIES to by TBR last year thinking I would get around to it…. At least by June. Fast forward to 2021 and I receive a donation to the BookOfCinz Library which includes this collection. Y’all, I started reading it immediately.

I absolutely loved and enjoyed this entire collection. How is it every story was a just so good?!!! Generally, in a collection you have a story that misses the mark but none of the stories in this collection fell below 3 stars for me. Every single one was gripping, sharp, fresh and beautifully executed.

The stories centers around Puerto Rican girls and boys living in the diaspora and how they are navigating the world of love, mother-daughter relationships and grief. I loved how the theme of love and war was carried out throughout the book.

They all explored themes of love and it was done in the most interesting way. We meet a young lady who wants to have the perfect Quinceanera but her Tia’s past mistakes is getting in the way. To the young men navigating young love, while trying to keep it a secret. To young lovers who thinks love is all you need. You are constantly forced to reckon what it means to love and be loved.

My stand out stories were:
Summer of Nene
Some Springs Girls Do Fir
The Belindas
La Hija Chango
Love War Stories

Rodriguez writing is intentional, not one word is out of place. The characters are fully formed and believable. It takes a real writer to write convincing situations and characters in just 5-10 pages and Rodriguez did this effortlessly.

Here are two quotes that really stopped me in my tracks!
By the time I knew people didn’t literally die from love, my father left my mother and I saw how she died

People make too much of love. Everybody thinks it’s all you need, but love is the starting point. There is so much that comes after love, so much that you can’t even imagine.

Friends, please give this book a read

[YZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memorable characters carry these stories straight into the reader's heart. The various characters' earnest yearnings are made compelling by lively storytelling and Rodriguez's wonderful eye for detail. Rodriguez is also surefooted in the way she deftly gives each character strong outlines, either through dialogue or by sketching out personality quirks. My favorite stories are Summer of Nene and El qué dirán.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe that this book is going to be a classic--a book that MFA students will study for the wonderful writing, and women's studies and other students will study it for the rich content about women's lives. People who want to know about women in Puerto Rico will read it for the Latina wisdom it provides. It won't be a book I quickly forget.

The characters in these stories were richly portrayed, multi-dimensional human beings who I'd like to meet. From the young woman whose husband went to the mainland to work, saying he would send for her and never did, to the girls who refuse to believe their mothers that men will always leave--these are all wonderful characters, and I would love to sit and have a conversation with them about life and about love. The writing doesn't get any better that this. I hope we see much more of Ivelisse Rodriguez's work, soon.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5: I know people tend to hate the self-instituted half-point ratings.

"Summer of Nene" and the titular "Love War Stories" were my faves. All of these stories standout and really do encapsulate the theme of love, often not always with a happy ending, but often not leaving folks unquestioning and unfulfilled. Love Rodriguez's voice and the characters she brings to life.

[Yvonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can read my review of this powerful book in an upcoming issue of The Brooklyn Rail.

[Bobbieshiann · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I always wondered how long the heart could stop and start before breaking”.

“I wonder if she ever sat down and thought for just one second that perhaps love doesn’t exist. Because who has ever known that has ever been in love? Not her parents, nor her neighbors, and most certainly not her friends. How is it that you can begin to believe in something when you have never seen proof of it?”

“Love between two people is up close, disheveled—a mélange of past, present, future love and acrimony”.

“Each guy, worse than the one before—the boys who pace the path of David. How much I have given away. Little piece of me. Gifts on the doorsteps of the ungrateful. I only blamed him, but he could not have broken me all on his own. Only cracked things break on the first blow”.

“But this is what our mothers taught us, and this is what we want you to learn: her boyfriend wasn’t just some cualquiera. He was someone we all thought was kind to her. The person who betrayed her was someone she knew, not someone she suspected would hurt her. Of all the rumors we heard, that was the worst one”.

[Mya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a fascinating mix of perspectives, experiences, and tones that bring vibrant insight into a variety of cultural and intergenerational tensions intimately tied to the acts of searching for, trying to understand, and finding love. This book contains beautiful meditations on love and its complicated nature; on cultural perceptions and the mythologizing of women in love in both macro and micro scales; and the insecurities and emotional strength of Puerto Rican women as they search and attempt to capture true love.

[Sarita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so excited to read this book and even woke up at 4:00 a.m. to start it. I read it in one sitting. Ivelisse wrote this book for all my fellow Boricua daughters and moms. The complicated relationships they form, exhibiting what love looks like for them, and carrying their inter-generational trauma of what is perceived as love versus reality. A love story will not save you nor define who you are and what your legacy will be. I wish I read this book in my teenage years. I saw glimpses of my younger self throughout. My favorites were El Que Diran, which reminded me a little of Stephen King's Carrie, Boricua style. Also, the Summer of Nene. I truly wish there will be a full length novel based on those characters. It stopped me dead in my tracks and proved love comes in all forms, not only in some romanticized hetero version. Felt it was the best love story in the book. La Hija de Chango spoke to me on a spiritual level and I received it's message wholeheartedly. I reread the last 5 paragraphs AT LEAST 10 times. There was a great tribute to Julia de Burgos, Puerto Rico's famous poet in the Simple Truth. A different take on her life and contributions I have not read before. There is such longing in that short story and Ivelisse nailed it. Love War Stories, the book's namesake was phenomenal. Thank you for writing this magical book. I will gift this book to all my Boricua sisters. We finally have our stories on the page. Highly recommend this book and seriously look forward to Ivelisse's future work.

[R.L. Maizes · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I loved about Ivelisse Rodriguez’s collection LOVE WAR STORIES: 1. The author’s voice. It was unlike one I’d read before but made me instantly comfortable, secure in its powers of storytelling. 2. The author’s insights about the role love plays in the lives and imaginations of the Puerto Rican girls she writes about and the conflicts it creates with their mothers. 3. Women and girls are at the centers of these stories, their hearts exposed on every page, daring the reader to look away. And much, much more. Highly recommend.

[Preethi+Groktestuk20 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joseph, a literature student at Berkeley, is the son of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father. One day, a mysterious package arrives on his doorstep,

[Elliott Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars - a dazzling collection of bildungwomans that revolve around the Boricua diaspora in the Northeast. Young women learn about love, loss, and themselves. I also liked the story about a queer relationship with a prominent mobility impaired character.

Great sense of humor and a window into Boricua customs and beliefs. Not a weak story in the set imo

[Sharon Velez Diodonet · Rating 5 out of 5]

"and I think about TV and how people fall in love , have families, and spend lives together. Not like it is around here; people love for a little while
...And I wonder what makes love last."

Love War Stories by Ivelisse Rodriguez is a short story collection that aimed to dissect the concept of love and show the many layers and aspects of it. I am a fan of short stories and this is one that is now one of my favorites. Every story brings up a new question about love and exposes another complexity. Each story leaves you wanting to search for answers and research further.

What I loved the most was that it was written from the Puerto Rican experience. Reading the stories felt personal. It exposed the mixed messaging and the ways that cultural aspects play a part in creating the notions and expectations of love. The prose was beautiful and relatable. The characters introduced were multifaceted and represented the mixture of identities found in Puerto Rican culture. Each story tackled a different conflict that is relatable. This collection pulled at different pieces of my heart.

The stories gave me so much to think about:
❤ How do you construct ideas about love when everything around you reflects the opposite?
❤ Why do we make idols of people we love?
❤ Why do women grieving love get stigmatized?
❤ Why is marraige the ideal and pushed by people unhappily married?
❤ How do continue to believe in love when all it does is disappoint?
❤ How do you make sense of all the mixed messaging about love and relationships?
❤ Why is a woman's reputation and identity judged in relation to who she loves?
❤ Is secret or forbidden love less valid than public love?
❤ If love isn't stagnant and constantly changing, how do you sustain or put limits on it?
❤ Why does love contradict?
❤ Why does love feel like grief?
❤ Can feminism exist with traditional ideas about love?

Bookdragon rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book! Each story kept you engaged and was different from the rest, you could find yourself in each character too. A quick and easy read, well worth it!

[Laura Leaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are nine stories here, linked together by the desires and griefs of young Puerto Rican girls (with the exception of one story from a boy's point of view). The writing is good, although sometimes overwrought, perhaps to emphasize the youth of the protagonists, and I enjoyed the collection. Still, I got a tiny bit tired of the emphasis on boys and was thinking that this might be a great book for young people who might identify more strongly with the characters.

My favorite stories were "Summer of Nene" and "The Belindas." In the first, I was simply surprised at the oddity of the plot, a boy who has a homosexual relationship with his friend, who is "always sick, some shit wrong with him" and who ends up in a wheelchair. In the second, Belinda, a student at Columbia law school, falls for a charming user named David Gonzalez, who breaks her heart. That's when she begins to gain "two pounds a week" and stalk her Ex and his new girl. Very intense. She's getting bigger and bigger, growing more Belindas.

The author, Ivelisse Rodriguez, is talented. I wish I could say all the stories interested me, but the two I've listed made reading the book worthwhile.

[Ashley JoEtta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.

Maybe I’ll write more about it later, but it was both painful and beautiful page to page.

[Lillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should've stopped sooner than I did (I only made it through "Summer of Nene"), but I was holding out hope for Love War Stories to somehow up and redeem itself.

Not that one can base a reading experience off of the included endorsements of other authors on a book jacket/in a book's first pages, but the featured, glowing praise from the likes of Cristina García, Angie Cruz, and Junot Díaz left me scratching my head—did we read the same collection? Because what I read simply didn't fit with what they were extolling.

Much of the writing in Love War Stories felt like a jumble—often switching focus and shifting between past and present, making it difficult to follow. At times clunky (with perceptions and sentiments awkwardly conveyed):
"...it was like each couple was one second in a minute, and each of their steps brought me closer to my future." ("El Qué Dirán," 22)
.
" It was a day I could easily lament the loss of and play over and over again in my head." ("El Qué Dirán," 23)
.
"Maceo says as he smiles to his eyes." ("The Simple Truth," 53),

and at others, even repetitive:
"Maceo catches me looking at him, and I blush as he begins to make his way over." ("The Simple Truth, 52)
"He is the kind of man I would watch from afar." ("The Simple Truth, 53),

Rodriguez's writing is missing an inherent element of flow. The included stories depicted violently (at times emotional, at times physical) bawdy and misguided character perceptions of "love." And while it's not as though I'm pining for the writing to be more buttoned up or overly romanticized in some contrived way, the stories themselves were unremittingly bleak and lifeless. There's also only so much mention of "tits," "dick," and "fucking" I can take.

Though she occasionally attempted to insert some forcibly, there was not much by way of depth to the stories themselves—they were instead very literal, face value events. A perfectly acceptable state of being that often works seamlessly for short stories in particular, but it's clear that this was not by design and that Rodriguez would be less than pleased to receive such an appraisal, as the text's own description attests: "This collection documents how these "love wars" break out across generations as individuals find themselves caught in the crosshairs of romance, expectations, and community."

And so the depth she attempted to tack on instead felt wooden and rehearsed:
"Veronica has always imagined herself sitting with Cassandra doing this on Thursday nights, but now, flipping through the book, she wonders what the years will bring. For once, she thinks the future isn't written. This fills her with sadness, and just a small pocket of hope." ("Holyoke, Mass.: An Ethnography," 45)
.
"Mother, Father loved you. I can't imagine he settled for anyone. When he knew he only had so many days left to live, he spent then with you. He could have left and ran around the world, but he didn't."
[...]
"I wish he hadn't left me with that stain. In the end, I'm left to deal with all the consequences." ("The Simple Truth," 61)

As a reader, this resulted in me grasping at straws and attempting to imbue said events/stories with nonexistent meaning and didactic qualities, so that the reading experience could feel as though it had somehow been worth it. In the end, this proved for me a fruitless endeavor.


Noteworthy lines:
"I had always wondered how long the heart could start and stop before breaking." ("El Qué Dirán," 2)

"I would beat on his chest and fold into a handkerchief of grief." ("El Qué Dirán," 12)

[Maria Regina Paiz · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this short story collection, Ivelisse Rodríguez focuses on the many facets of love, from a Latina perspective. In these pages you can feel the Latino culture –particularly the Newyorican community– bursting from the page, from its loud colors and pulsating music, to the high dramas constructed around love. As a Guatemalan and American, it was easy for me to relate to the burdens that our Hispanic culture generally centers around love: heavily charged with inherited old-fashioned beliefs; sexual guilt based on the ghosts of Catholicism; yearning for Americanness while clinging to our homecountry's identity; and strained relations with parents, derived from the discord between filial duty and a desire for independence, trying to build a new model.

Some of the stories are tough. The one that most captured me was The Belindas. It centers around a young woman coming face to face with a former lover who enters her office, who does not recognize her because she has transformed into an invisible stranger, after gaining a lot of weight. Rodríguez captures this character well, her humiliation and shame exposed as she realizes the dissonance between the two Belindas: the one she was meant to be from the one she ended up becoming.

I'd love to see Rodríguez expand one of these short stories into a novel. Some of her characters have a lot more to say.

[Sandra Barron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A former professor of mine once pointed out how we love to hear stories about ourselves but we also relish being taken into into secret subcultures that we don't belong to. This story collection did both for me. Not having grown up inside the Newyorican enclaves (counting big cities in MA and NJ), I loved being escorted on a tour of that world. In Holyoke, Mass: An Ethonography, I feel like I slipped into a bathroom stall unseen and was getting a rare and fascinating glimpse into what the tough girls say when they think they're alone. In The Belindas, a young woman is so destroyed by a breakup that she obliterates her former self by eating until she becomes unrecognizably obese. In La Hija de Changó, a scholarship winner to a prestigious NY private school negotiates that world she comes from with the one that beckons--and it's not as easy as you would think. My favorites were Some Springs Girls Do Die for its short, poetic beauty and sharp contrast between the thrill of falling in love and the haunting death of a classmate. The story that held up a mirror was Love Wars, which was about the culture and generational wars between mothers and daughters. Ivelisse Rodriguez's writing is clear-eyed and clean, authoritative, tough, and tender at the same time. I loved it and recommend it. Great for syllabi in women's studies, Latin American Studies, and fiction writing courses.

[Azzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gorgeous short story collection made me feel..so..many..things. Ivelisse's writing is electric. She captures the amorphous (this weird thing called love) with visceral clarity. Her characters are diverse & complex; moving through moments of mourning/yearning. One of my absolute favourite reads of the year so far.

[Christopher Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE WAR STORIES remains one of my favorite short story collections from 2018. Stories that are honest and funny and tender, about what Puerto Rican women and girls are expected to endure and put themselves through to be with men, for this idea of ever-lasting love.

[Shana-Kay Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad

Some of the stories were good while others not so much. One reason why I didn't give more stars is that sometimes I'd come to the end of a story and couldn't quite say what happened and so you felt like it wasn't finished.

[Dionisia]

MUST. READ.

[Lizvette · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writting is good but I didn’t connected or identified with any of the characters and their stories.

[Deirdre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ivelisse Rodriguez is a new voice and an important one. This is a collection of short stories by a Latina, a Puerto Rican who grew up in Massachusetts. The book was nominated for a prestigious PEN Fiction award, the only short stories in its category. All the stories explore the love-hate relationship Puerto Rican women have with love. You must have a man. Women without husbands are suspect, even if that husband left them long ago. Girls are groomed to impress the right boys, yet they end up loving - or lusting after - the wrong boys. The husbands are drinkers or gamblers, philanderers or worse. Rodriguez has a purpose with her stories: She wants to tell the memoirs of people who came to the United States. She wants to move on from the nostalgia for a lost homeland and the challenges of learning English.
“I wanted to focus on how love narratives are detrimental to women, that we should be showing girls and young women that there are things more important than love, like kindness, compassion, consideration.”
The collection is a fascinating look at an old, enduring culture. It is shocking to see how poorly women are treated, and Rodriguez is calling out to those who perpetuate the myths and continue predatory behavior.
Full review and interview with the author: https://www.salisburypost.com/2019/04...

[Mona Frazier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a short story collection which observes and explores generations of women who have consuming relationships, betrayal, and different expectations of love. The back cover describes the stories well:

"Puerto Rican girls are raised to want one thing: true love. Yet they are brought up by women whose lives are marked by grief and betrayal...While some believe they'll be the ones to make it work, others swear not to repeat cycles of violence..."

Not only Puerto Ricans girls are socialized this way. As a Chicana, there are similar expectations for love as I'm sure this is the same for Mejicanas and other Latinx. I admit, I saw myself (in the past) in a couple of these stories.

This is one of the few books where I shouted at the characters, cried, and laughed while reading. Early books of Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, and Helena Maria Viramontes evoked similar reactions. The author of this book, Ivelisse Rodriguez, is a fierce writer, managing to beautifully render the broken heart, the obsessive love, and the private hell of lost love.

My favorite story was "The Belinda's" but all of the stories have an aspect which will appeal to many readers. This book is one I'll reread because it's that good.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love War stories really tugged at my heartstrings, the stories beautifully captured all realms of love-including the good, the bad, and the ugly. I loved that this was centered on the Puerto Rican perspective in such an authentic way. I also loved the way this book challenges traditional expectations for women when it comes to marriage, motherhood, and love. I enjoyed reading about sensitive topics that generally are not spoken about in the Latino community such as not wanting to be a mother, same-sex and abusive relationships.

I flew through the book because I could not put it down. I was so captivated by the stories and the rich characters. There were sentences that I would reread because I was in awe by the lovely choice of words that perfectly described a character, a feeling, or a moment. I will definitely go back and reread some of my favorite stories in this collection.

[Elisabeth Zalepa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this collection so much! I’ve been so interested in love as a feminist subject & patriarchal dynamics in relationships lately and this collection of short stories covers that in many different ways all from the perspectives of Puerto Rican women & girls and one gay male couple. I would love to read all about love by bell hooks after this and see how it compares. My favorites in this collection in order are definitely Love War Stories, La Hija de Chango and Simple Truth. What Rosie’s mom says in the end of the titular story about how we always go back and forth to both sides is so true and I really relate to that so much. I was so glad to see this topic portrayed in literature by Latina women, everyone go read this collection right now!

[Iridium · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omnibus of short stories, most of which involve:
-Young women being abandoned or cheated on by their boyfriends
-Mothers who are emotionally abusive in some way
-Fathers who are close with their daughters but did their mothers wrong, thus precipitating the abuse
-Arecibo, Puerto Rico
-Springfield, MA and its surrounding area (Holyoke, Chicopee, etc.)
-New York City, particularly Puerto Rican girls going to graduate school, college, private school in NYC

Well-written and interesting but a little repetitive and every story seemed to end too soon.