334 reviews for:

Wild Tongues Can't Be Tamed: 15 Voices from the Latinx Diaspora

Saraciea J. Fennell

4.32 AVERAGE

__apf__'s review

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I opened this book with the mistaken belief that these were short fiction stories. Instead, it's a collection of non-fiction personal essays about people struggling with or coming to terms with their Latino identities. I found many of the essays touching, reminding me of my own family and self. Others opened my eyes to how Afro-Latinos or Black Latinos can be excluded from Latino communities and conversations, and the pain that can cause. The main challenge with the book is that the essays feel repetitive; by halfway through, I started wishing that the editor had aimed for less similarity between the individual essays.

sreddous's review

5.0

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Challenging and uncomfortable exactly where it needs to be. This is a really interesting lens into some things that on the surface feel obvious -- people of color experience racial stereotyping, everyone "knows that" -- but, it's totally different to have a lens into just HOW personal and difficult it is. This is a neat balance of poetry and prose for a variety of tones and heaviness. Really interesting collection!

zarrazine's review

4.25

reflective medium-paced

breezyreading's review

5.0

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

ilarian's review

4.0

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

jaclyn_k's review

3.75

emotional reflective medium-paced

mfranci13's review

5.0

emotional reflective fast-paced

itzsabino's review

5.0

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

gigireadswithkiki's review

2.0

emotional reflective fast-paced

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I was enjoying this book until I read the stories by Kahlil Haywood and Lilliam Rivera. Imagine being traitors to your race and class by spouting bootlicking cop sympathy ("No one ever spoke of the burden of being a cop") + espousing the wonders of tourism and how "beneficial" it is to indigenous populations (news flash: the tourism industry is and always will be extremely detrimental to indigenous peoples and their economy. Coupled with preachy paragraph on how people need to visit other countries in order to have empathy for other people? Disgusting.)

Before these two garbage stories, I really enjoyed how in depth the stories are regarding the Latinx diaspora. The stories of anti-Blackness/colorism and white ignorance were emotionally powerful and profound. As this is a book of short stories, I would recommend this book, but I would heavily advise just skipping the two aforementioned stories; you're not missing out on anything by doing so. 

bookish_chismosa's review

3.75

informative reflective fast-paced