Downtown Springfield Association

Welcome to your new favorite book club! Join the Downtown Springfield Association and the Springfield-Greene County Library District every second Thursday of the month at 6 p.m. for the Downtown Book Club.

November 2024 Pick:

Lobizona by Romina Garber

Description

Some people ARE illegal.

Lobizonas do NOT exist.

Both of these statements are false.

Manuela Azul has been crammed into an existence that feels too small for her. As an undocumented immigrant who’s on the run from her father’s Argentine crime-family, Manu is confined to a small apartment and a small life in Miami, Florida.

Until Manu’s protective bubble is shattered.

Her surrogate grandmother is attacked, lifelong lies are exposed, and her mother is arrested by ICE. Without a home, without answers, and finally without shackles, Manu investigates the only clue she has about her past–a mysterious “Z” emblem—which leads her to a secret world buried within our own. A world connected to her dead father and his criminal past. A world straight out of Argentine folklore, where the seventh consecutive daughter is born a bruja and the seventh consecutive son is a lobizón, a werewolf. A world where her unusual eyes allow her to belong.

As Manu uncovers her own story and traces her real heritage all the way back to a cursed city in Argentina, she learns it’s not just her U.S. residency that’s illegal. . . .it’s her entire existence.

Content Warnings:

  • ICE raids
  • Police brutality
  • Descriptions of heavy menstruation and intense menstrual pain
  • Reference to rape
  • Drugging of a minor
  • Racism
  • Xenophobia
  • Transphobia
  • Sexism
  • Homophobia
  • Graphic violence

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Previous Reads

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

One Two Three by Laurie Frankel

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson

Homegoing by Yaa Gysai

The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood

Queerly Beloved by Susie Dumond

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow

Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

We Deserve Monuments by Jas Hammonds

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Where You See Yourself by Claire Forrest

Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

Turtles All The Way Down by John Green

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

A Special Place for Women by Laura Hankin

Need a copy of this month’s book?

Visit the Park Central Branch of the Springfield-Greene County Library District to grab a copy! Put your request in now, because it may take about a week to get your copy.