Sharp and ferocious, uncompromising and funny, Lady Without Land is a maddening and compulsively readable novel, filled to the brim with brash anecdotes and tender insights, too, about family, sex, doubt, and the search for self. Proof positive that we all have stories we read and hear, desperate to find something to drown out our sorrows, and find ourselves serving up straight shots of our own defiant music. - Manuel Muñoz, author of What You See in the Dark, Contest Judge
Vazquezs debut is exceptional. With mindblowing creativity, Lady Without Lands original construct of following a young, Mexican womans life via literature and cocktail recipes is a powerful cultural education that is at times heartbreaking, poetic, funny, and at all times, of the highest literary value. A perfect blend of engaging plot and prose, Vazquez is sure to make a huge name in literatureand thank the Gods of Bartenders for such intoxicating new blood! - Shannon Kirk, international bestselling author of Method 15/33 and recipient of Literary Classics Seal of Approval for The Extraordinary Journey of Vivienne Marshall
By turns witty, tragic, and wholly subversive, Krystal Anali Vazquezs Lady without Land tracks a young Latina woman through a labyrinth of familial crises and relationship blunders, via the lens of putative book reviews and cocktail recipes. From LA to DC to, finally, New York, readers encounter this narrators growth as she navigates the socioeconomic ladder, routing herself through government bureaucracies and academic institutions, and with them, a host of (often preventable) wreckage. Through it all, Vazquez exudes a penchant for humor and satire, marking this intelligent tome as, quite simply, a compulsively readable and wildly entertaining debut. - John James, author of The Milk Hours
Krystal Anali Vazquez is a mixologist; she brings together coming-of-age stories, authentic Latinx characters, and tasty drink recipes that intrigue and inspire you. Her novel transports you to Los Angeles, New York City, and rural parts of Mexico through vignettes as well as meditations on books from the Western literary canon. The book spans the protagonists formidable years as she explores her womanhood. From her relationships with her mother and father and their adolescence, to her moments with her own siblings, and her different relationships with men and women, the protagonist bears it all to you and brings you into her mundo, a world that so many can relate to and learn from. - Celeste Guzmán Mendoza, author of Beneath the Halo and co-founder of CantoMundo
