Reviews with content warning for Gaslighting - Anita de Monte Laughs Last

While I loved the overarching story of two Latina artists interweaving across generations, I struggled to get through this book due to the heavy domestic abuse, especially the chapters from the abuser’s perspective. I would have preferred to hear from solely from Anita and Raquel, and to have their stories start to interweave earlier on in the book.

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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Feels like a necessary book, though I have mixed feelings about Anita’s voice as a second life. I thought it was funny and relevant, but I think I didn’t really love the use of it as a plot device. Also, my revenge lust wasn’t quenched enough. I would’ve preferred to see Jack dealt with greater consequences.

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george_tte's review

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dark inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

Systemic oppression and domestic abuse contrasted in fantastic, fleshed-out characters. It was slow at first, but once it picked it up I found it hard to stop reading.

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okiecozyreader's review against another edition

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emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I really loved Olga Dies Dreaming and I was so excited that Anita de Monte Laughs Last was so much fun to listen to. I highly recommend the audio with multiple narrators. Jessica Pimentel does an incredible job as Anita de Monte in the 1980s. She adds so much to the reading, it truly is like listening to a movie.

Anita de Monte is based on the life of Ana Mendieta who was an artist who died in 1985 when she fell or was pushed out of an apartment window (and was married to sculptor Carl Andre). As someone who loves art, this book (and others like Still Life by Sarah Winman) make you think about how few women artists we really know. Author Xochitl Gonzalez found Ana Mendieta in an art history class.

Anita de Monte tells her story as a ghost, recalling the event that caused her death and moments with her husband Jack after her death.

In another timeline, Raquel is in art history classes at Brown studying Jack and and discovers Anita de Monte. We find similarities between their relationships and the way women artists are treated and valued.

There is also some magical realism woven into this story as she tells it from a ghost’s perspective and her interactions with her husband (iykyk).

“And, from what I was eavesdropping in the gallery that night, most of these men not only hated feminist art, but I suspected, hated women as well.”

“And then. And then I was sent to America, and rendered invisible. Rendered lifeless. Alone.”

“Well, it felt like even when I bury myself in your f*ing soil, I’m still not American enough. … To prostrate myself, in some way, for having gone to such pains to become one with a place that rejected me over and over and over again.”

“ presume her to be grateful for it, even - was only possible because he had told her, in ways great and small, that he knew best and she had signaled that he was correct.”

“She realized that so much of what she thought as good art had simply been that which had been elevated by John Temple, because it was understood by and spoke to and created by men just like John. And that in the omission of things that were made by or understood by or in conversation with people like her, Raquel had, unconsciously, begun to see those things as lesser. And that revelation sparked one that was even more painful: the reason that Raquel subconsciously believed that Nick knew “better” than her was that it was Nick’s point of view had been affirmed and internalized by the white walls of every museum or gallery that had ever been told was worth looking at.”

“…she had firmly placed them behind a wall called her past; a section of her mind she didn’t like to visit much.”

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