Like Proper Ladies: A Novel of Queer Coming Age in Lima

On her birthday, in the one queer club in Lima where she finally feels safe, a man smashes a beer pitcher into her face.Across fifteen short, propulsive chapters, Like Proper Ladies follows a nameless queer narrator through her childhood and youth-a coming-of-age in 1990s Peru told with razor wit: first crushes and Catholic guilt, first heartbreaks, the family that looks away, the nights spent dancing in secret. She refuses to be pitied, so she makes you laugh on one page and breaks your heart on the next.It's the kind of book you devour in one sitting and immediately want to lend to a friend-queer or not-because you know they'll see themselves in it. A story that entertains as fiercely as it moves, and ends not in despair but on the dance floor.For readers of Ocean Vuong, Carmen Maria Machado, and Benjamin Alire Sáenz.The author's own English translation of the acclaimed Spanish original, soon to be published in France.