Dogs of Summer

In this poetic first book set in a working-class neighborhood of the Canary Islands, "My Brilliant Friend meets Blue is the Warmest Color" tells the narrative of two girls coming of age in the early aughts and their relationship, which simmers into passionate yearning over the course of one scorching summer.

The working class is engulfed in an unbearable, stifling heat by an unending canopy of clouds high near the volcano in northern Tenerife. Two girls want to escape their horizonless village by hitching a ride to the beach, far from the island's upscale resorts.

In the summer of 2005, our ten-year-old narrator can't get her best friend Isora off her mind. Isora is assertive and impolite, but she's also bold and energetic; both boys and adults like her. Because of this, she sometimes feels envious of Isora, who already has round, soft breasts and hair on her vagina. However, she isn't envious that Isora's mother passed away or that Isora's chubby, nasty-mouthed grandma is forcing her to follow a diet and is always prodding her in the neck. She would also go to any lengths for Isora, such overindulging in cakes when her buddy wants to watch, accompanying her to the restroom when she has to urinate, and entering chat rooms to exchange explicit messages with random people. However, our narrator is finding it more and more difficult to keep up with Isora, who appears to be developing at full speed without her. As a result, desire becomes indistinguishable from intimate violence as Isora's submissiveness veers into a painful sexual awakening.

Dogs of Summer is a narrative of exquisite desire, a terrible portrait of girlhood, and a love song composed for the lively community it represents. It weaves prose poetry with bachata songs and the rough comedy of Canary vernacular.