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Flores and Miss Paula

A Novel

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

A Recommended Book From:

The Washington Post * Today * Sunset Magazine * Country Living * Good Housekeeping

A wry, tender novel about a Peruvian immigrant mother and a millennial daughter who have one final chance to find common ground

Thirtysomething Flores and her mother, Paula, still live in the same Brooklyn apartment, but that may be the only thing they have in common. It's been nearly three years since they lost beloved husband and father Martín, who had always been the bridge between them. One day, cleaning beneath his urn, Flores discovers a note written in her mother's handwriting: Perdóname si te falle. Recuerda que siempre te quise. ("Forgive me if I failed you. Remember that I always loved you.") But what would Paula need forgiveness for?

Now newfound doubts and old memories come flooding in, complicating each woman's efforts to carve out a good life for herself—and to support the other in the same. Paula thinks Flores should spend her evenings meeting a future husband, not crunching numbers for a floundering aquarium startup. Flores wishes Paula would ask for a raise at her DollaBills retail job, or at least find a best friend who isn't a married man.

When Flores and Paula learn they will be forced to move, they must finally confront their complicated past—and decide whether they share the same dreams for the future. Spirited and warm-hearted, Melissa Rivero's new novel showcases the complexities of the mother-daughter bond with fresh insight and empathy.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 4, 2023
      A Peruvian immigrant and her 30-something daughter struggle to get along while sharing a Brooklyn apartment in Rivero’s heart-rending latest (after The Affairs of the Falcóns). At the outset, Flores discovers a cryptic note from her beloved late father Martin (“Forgive me, if I failed you”) tucked beneath the wooden urn holding his ashes. She’d love to uncover the meaning of the note, but is preoccupied by her finance job at the Bowl, an app startup with revenue problems founded by a college friend. Meanwhile, Flores’s mother, Paula, has just marked her two-year anniversary at the dollar store where she’s worked since the death of her husband from cancer, and pines for Vicente, a married man and fellow Peruvian. Flores questions her mother’s friendship with Vicente as much as Paula bemoans her daughter’s long hours spent in the office, wishing Flores would devote herself to finding a husband. Before Paula works up to sharing the truth about Martin, Rivero mixes up a stew of drama. First, office politics draw Flores into unexpected predicaments at the Bowl, where she’s caught between the managers’ competing visions. Later, Paula falls and hurts her arm after unexpectedly encountering Vicente with his wife. It all hangs together nicely, setting the stage for a surprisingly moving conclusion. This is a treat. Agent: Julia Kardon, Hannigan Getzler Literary.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Gisela Ch�pe and Liliana Montenegro provide nuanced alternating narrations in this contemporary audiobook about a strained mother-daughter relationship. Ch�pe portrays 30-something Monica Yolanda Flores, who shares a Brooklyn apartment with her recently widowed Peruvian-born mother, Paula. Ch�pe adeptly conveys Flores's sorrow and longing for deeper connections beyond her friendships at her finance job. Montenegro employs a mature, sensible tone for Paula, who is finding her feet at her job at a dollar store and in a possible relationship with an old friend, who is married. The transitions between the first-person perspectives of Flores and Paula are eased by the narrators' relaxed pacing. After the novel's early focus on workplace environments, patient listeners will discover the complexities of Flores and her mother's history and present life. M.J. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

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