These stories, of the everyday life of a specific section of society, shimmer with life and vitality.

A short but impactful look at the lives of a group of latin american queer trans friends living in New York City. Some are drag queens, some are sex workers, all are deeply affected by the way society treats immigrants and trans people.

Each chapter serves as a different story about an experience shared by the group, from loving to losing. This is a story about survival, solidarity and finding your own family.

I wish it were a longer book, but it's very much worth your time.

A solid 3.5*s. This is a fascinating look at the lives of a group of trans Latinx immigrant sex workers in New York, each story showing a snippet of their lives (so they're more like short vignettes from different characters' perspectives, rather than full-blown short stories). The writing is often funny and blunt/matter of fact, but there are some beautiful and poignant sentences too. I don't use my Kindle highlighter much, but I did here.

Given their short length, these stories are easy to gulp down and in hindsight I wish I'd taken more time over them. I was finding some aspects a little repetitive by the end (understandably given the characters are from the same circle), and I wonder if savouring them over a week, rather than devouring them in a day, might have been a better way to experience this book.

Even so, it's a fascinating insight into a community you rarely see represented, and I'd recommend for anyone who thinks the premise sounds interesting, because it delivers as promised!

This book does something really quite special in opening a lid on a group of people whose stories are not often told, and giving them space for their voices to run wild.

Ojeda's power is in their ability to marry together the gritty daily reality of struggling queens, sex workers and trans people, and the humour and glamour that can be found in every situation. You imagine Ojeda sauntering through those streets like a true queen, but also feel their pain and shame when things go wrong.

We watch as they evade the police, meet clients, go to a psychiatric ward after some bad weed, and thrive as well as survive, celebrating small wins.

It is a small, but beautiful and unexpected, gem of a book, and I am excited for more people to read it.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a short book comprising brief slice-of-life sketches that feel more like lightly fictionalised memoir rather than stories as such. Ojeda offers up an enticing view of a close-knit Latinx trans community living in New York, and existing on the edge between bar/club jobs, sex work, decaying tenement buildings, being hauled in by the police and even brief stints in prison.

The writing is even and undramatic even when the narrator is in the throes of a drug-fuelled panic attack and there are flashes of wit: 'my make-up had worn off, with the exception of my waterproof mascara. I hadn't spent those ten dollars in vain' (um, brand, please?!)

There is darkness here ('Jennifer was a trans woman from Honduras and she was castrated. Some thought that's why she was murdered... those murders were part of what it means to be a trans woman in New York. I'd add that it was part of the life of a sex worker'), but there's also also support, friendship and acute resilience. The carnations that mark Jennifer's death stand out as markers of how beauty might co-exist with ugliness, fear and violence, and the book ends with a similar ebullience that might temporarily erase the sadness from which it springs: 'we laugh and we dance until the sun goes down. From a distance, we must look like a coven of multicoloured witches.'

Las Biuty Queens is a book of interconnected stories about a group of trans Latinx friends who live in New York City, looking for clients and highs, and dealing with the realities of immigration policies and the harshness of America. The stories follow their interpersonal drama, difficulties with the law, and the brutal realities of being someone in such a liminal space, but also their joy and friendship.

Chilean writer Iván Monalisa Ojeda draws on his/her own experiences for the book, and you can really feel the real pain and happiness throughout, especially when situations are described that seem impossible to win. The format—short stories that are all held together by the same narrator, moving between different times in a non-linear way—works well to paint a picture rather than tell a single story, and despite being individual stories, the book felt more cohesive than some novels.

Exploring sex work, drugs, and immigration, Las Biuty Queens sits well alongside other books that explore trans lives in New York City, and it has a witty immediacy that brings you straight into each story. It's a rare occasion on which I wish a book was longer, because I definitely would've read more of this.