In July 1990, Liliana Rivera Garza's life was tragically cut short by her ex-boyfriend's violent actions, transforming what began as a summer of love and adventure into a tale of abuse and heartbreak. In response to her sister's murder, Cristina, Liliana's sibling, pens a memoir that lovingly recounts the hopeful spirit of her younger sister. Returning to Mexico, Cristina endeavours to piece together Liliana's journals and letters, weaving them with the neglected reports of the long-abandoned case.

The narrative unfolds with beautiful and poetic language, delivering a powerful impact. This book serves as both an account of a murder case overlooked by a corrupt criminal system and a deeply personal memoir brimming with love, grief, and anger. Through Cristina's emotional journey, the narrative sheds light on the horrifying prevalence of hate and violence against women, revealing how society tends to normalise such atrocities.

This book, undeniably filled with intense sadness, proves challenging to read at times. Its most potent sections, however, are those composed by Liliana herself—scribbles from her notebook, letters she sent.

Cristina Rivera Garza skilfully captures the essence of her sister, offering a profound understanding of who Liliana was. Interviews with her university friends from that period further contribute to this vivid portrayal, enhancing the narrative with personal insights and memories.

The combination of Liliana's own words and the perspectives of those who knew her adds depth to the emotional journey depicted in the book.

A huge thank you to the author - Cristina Rivera Garza as well as Youssef at Bloomsbury Publishing for the ARC.

I am in awe of the strength that Cristina possesses and how she has been able to write this book. It is incredibly raw and thorough how she builds Liliana’s life and presents it to the reader through a wealth of notebooks and personal letters from her archive. A heavy and heartbreaking read but the memory of Liliana lives on through this beautiful tribute.
Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

feels almost impossible to review something as raw as this. there were sections of it that, to me, were more successful than others, but part of that must be because there's such an extreme closeness to the material. the lense of a sister! it's the book's biggest asset and greatest weakness?

Thank you to Bloomsbury and NetGalley for my advanced-reader copy of this book. This review features my own opinions and authentic thoughts.

What a harrowing, beautiful tribute to a woman, friend, daughter, sister.

In this genre-defying memoir, Cristina Rivera Garza draws attention to the femicide problem in Mexico City, while preserving the shining memory of her little sister Liliana, aged just 20 when murdered by her ex-boyfriend. This one feels deeply personal as the author collects – and shares with us – handwritten letters, police documentation, diary entries to paint a picture of an ambitious woman navigating gendered violence and the hell that came afterwards. It brought to light the voices of missing, disappeared women in Mexico and hammers home how important it is to recognise and fight against gendered violence.

How brave to write a story so personal, emotional and heart breaking. Bringing her sister, Liliana back to life as the vibrant, clever and beautiful young women she was whilst highlighting the violence against women and the struggle for justice for them.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read Liliana's Invincible Summer.

This is such a great memoir. It is well written and was an emotional read.
It was such an interesting read.

Liliana's Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza is described as a collective call for justice in Mexico City, one of the most dangerous places in the world for women.

"It welcomes just about everyone, this city. It kills just about anyone, too".

The author's sister, Liliana, was murdered in July 1990 when she was just 20 years old. By the time a warrant was issued for the arrest of her ex-boyfriend, he had vanished.

Grieving her sister for over two decades, the author only recently dared to go through Liliana's personal journals, diary entries and correspondence with her friends. In sharing some of these, she builds a story of not just another statistic, but a young student full of life with a talent for writing poetry and a habit of sending her friends love notes. She is described by those friends and loved ones as "an avid reader, an intellectual, a nice, outspoken, friendly nerd who loved Agatha Christie. A woman who does not want to have any boyfriends. A loving friend."

By placing the focus on Liliana, and not her killer, we get to know her as a person, not a "murdered woman".

In the book, as well as this picture of her sister and interviews with those who knew her, we get to see the incredibly frustrating journey that the author went on while trying to find out more information about the case. Bribery appears to be rampant, with disinterested authorities happy to give family the run-around unless it benefits them. Femicide is frighteningly common in and around Mexico City - From January to November 2022, there were 131 women killed. The author draws attention to the importance of written accounts, and how easy it is for States to otherwise delete history (as we've seen elsewhere recently).

The e-book is sometimes hard to follow - it's not always easy to figure out who's speaking - but I imagine this would work better in print or in the finished version.

It's a devastating account, but it's an incredibly important piece of preservation that will help shine a light on the grassroots movements trying to end violence towards women in Mexico and beyond.

A tribute written by a heartbroken grieving sister to her sister.
As much as I like the idea behind this book and feel for Cristina, unfortunately, I dnf it. It´s very chaotic with moments that aren't understandable. I mean there are parts thrown in that add nothing to the story.
In the beginning, we see Cristina, who lost her sister almost three decades ago, trying to obtain some files regarding the murder. Because Liliana was murdered. Mexico is infamous for femicide. The author writes interestingly about domestic violence and how Jacquelyn Campbell developed the first Danger Assessment tool.
Then the author writes about her memories, how she remembers Liliana. After that, we see Liliana as a person who loves to write, and how she was exchanging countless letters with her friends. At some point, the relationship with her boyfriend starts forming and Cristina while looking back is trying to find the first warning signs.
Well, the writing style is not for me. I can see why some people see this book as a wonderful act of sisterly love

This book was emotional, fast moving and deep. I really enjoyed the writing and it is hard to say you 'enjoyed' a book with such a topic - I didnt want to put it down at all. It was sad and heart wrenching but in a good way. I really felt in the minds and emotions of the characters. I would definitely consider this author again, it is a writing style I really agreed with.

This book is a haunting memoir of a woman searching for justice for her murdered sister.

In July 1990, Liliana Rivera Garza was murdered by her ex-boyfriend. What started as a wonderful summer of love and travel was soon cut short by his abuse. Now, Liliana’s sister Cristina wrote a memoir full of love and stories about her hopeful younger sister. She returned to Mexico, trying to piece together Liliana’s journals and letters with the official reports of the long-abandoned case...

Written in beautiful, poetic language, this book hits hard. It is an account of a murder case neglected by the corrupt criminal system and a personal memoir full of love, grief and anger. From this anger comes Cristina’s attempt to bring to light the horrible cases of hate and violence against women and how society increasingly normalises it. Despite the author's matter-of-fact tone, it is an emotional and harrowing read.

Amazingly well-researched and written with so much heart and emotion. You really go on a journey when reading this book.

“I seek justice for my sister.”

In Liliana’s Invincible Summer, Christina Rivera Garza pays tribute to her younger sister, Liliana Rivera Garza who was a 20 year old university student in 1990 when she was murdered in her own home.

Drawing from paraphernalia that belonged to Liliana, including notebooks, letters, notes, photographs, and postcards, conversations and interviews with friends and family, and Cristina’s own memories, Garza shares an affecting portrait of her beloved sister and her too brief life.

“…it was so clear, that we knew very little. A naïve girl, prey to the daily abuse of a manipulator. A woman perhaps too free. A disciplined swimmer. A confused young woman ready to try everything. A good and docile youngster, exceptionally blind to danger. A customary liar. An outstanding student. An all too innocent teenager. A friend for life. A woman full of love. A sloppy kid. Someone with a past. The pictures painted by these stories, and even by my own memory, multiplied exponentially, contradicting each without so much as a blush.”

Liliana first met her killer when she was in middle school, and though he pursued her immediately, she was fifteen, and he seventeen, before she agreed to date him. Over the next four years theirs was an off and on relationship, Liliana struggled to seperate from him completely, and he, reportedly possessive and aggressive, refused to let her go. Just weeks before her murder it seems she had made the resolution to cut him from her life for good.

Sadly, Liliana is one of many women murdered in Mexico by an intimate partner. Garza discusses how the ‘machismo’ culture of the country, along with law enforcement corruption, has historically failed to protect women. Femicide was not incorporated as a federal crime until 2012.

Liliana’s killer, though identified as Ángel González Ramos, evaded the police in the days following her murder, and has yet to be brought to justice.

An eloquent, impassioned and poignant memoir, Liliana’s Invincible Summer is a powerful read.

This is an incredibly emotional and heart breaking story. It is a very heavy book told by the author whose sister aas murdered by her ex partner. The book is very hard to read at times as it is such a sad true life story bit one that I am very glad to have read.

This was an emotive and heartbreaking account on a woman’s life cut short by her ex-boyfriend, a narrative that is all too familiar all across the world. This was written beautifully, non-fiction books can be hard to digest at times especially with such a difficult subject but the way Garza approached this was unique from anything that I had read before. Liliana’s life was told through the letters, poems and notes that she had written, deciphered by her sister. This approach as well as the interviews from her close friends and family brought her world to life, "Liliana, strong and fragile at the same time.” I was able to feel her emotions and visualise her life and the pain that carried on afterwards. From short extracts from those closest in her life, they gave a clear indication of her life and more specifically her relationship. The use of the interviews from different friends gave a really interesting insight into this man, giving little clues to what eventually happened. Through these letters we‘re transported into Liliana’s mind and her internal conflict with love as "Love hurts [her], and yet isn’t it that what makes us happy?"

Throughout, there was a parallel between what happened to Liliana and things happening in real life and to so many women which made it an impactful read. There was a constant mention of “selfish love” and that "Freedom, [Liliana] reminded [her] all the time, was the most important possession in life.” Even towards the end, there is a persistent and growing danger looming over as "Liliana who, as much as she turned the world upside down, could not find the words to name the violence that followed her closely." Cristiana explored and presented why so many victims struggle to escape domestic violence, again reflecting the systemic blame off of women. Accounts like this are so important, reminding people of the growing injustice and fear for many women and how ultimately the patriarchy does nothing to dissemble it because ultimately it is only men who can stop this. The author criticises the way love and toxic men are romanticised as someone that women can ‘fix’ which is a very dangerous mentality as “Self-destruction and disenchantment do not constitute an example of a true and fiery romanticism but of a romanticism that is murderous.”

I really enjoyed the letters that were woven into this novel, it’s very clear how detailed and expressive of her feelings in those letters, they were important for her and we learn a lot about her from them. The narrator slid between the present of Cristina reflecting on Liliana and the past through Liliana letters. I like the different perspectives and observations from other people who had knew Liliana’s and speaking about their time together. Whilst Liliana’s murderer is never brought to justice, we’re able to witness how Cristina is able to create her own justice by immortalising who she was as a person and her story as “time was eternal”. I appreciate how hard this must have been to write, to revisit her sisters life and death. "If the wound heals, I will swim once more. I want to meet her again in the water. I want to swim, as I always did, in my sisters company”.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is Cristina Rivera Garza’s non-fiction account of the murder of her sister Liliana in 1990 in Mexico City. The murderer, Liliana’s controlling and jealous ex-boyfriend, is still at large today.
Femicide is an enormous problem in Mexico (apparently 10 women are killed every day), as it is everywhere in the world. Rivera Garza’s main point is that by learning more about this crime we can reduce risks. There are ways of recognising when women are in danger (first and foremost prior violence) and there is evidence when the risk is highest (the first three months after a break-up, whereby the risks drop significantly after the first year). The more attention there is for it, the better the chances of risks being recognised and action being taken on time.
She also spends considerable time underlining that the problem are men and it is ‘not the fault of the women, or where they are or how they dress’.
The book is obviously intensely sad and at times very tough to read. The strongest sections are actually written by Liliana herself: scribbles from her notebook, letters she sent. Rivera Garza has really managed to give a good idea of who her sister was, also thanks to interviews with her university friends from the time: full of contradictions and strong emotions as we all were as young adults.

This is heavy. It is about femicide in Mexico told through the lens of the author whose only sister was brutally murdered and still this crime goes unpunished. In her pursuit of justice, some 30 years later, and frustrated in her efforts to get access to the official case files she puts pen to paper to provide a permanent testament to Liliana's life and death at the hands of a controlling ex-boyfriend; that record is this book.

Such a powerful and harrowing book as CRG takes on patriarchy, femicide, toxic masculinity and systemic injustice. While calling out the specifics of Mexican national culture, she also draws attention to the fault lines that can be traced globally as women are controlled, abused, find their bodily autonomy withheld and are, ultimately, killed by men. So many women are killed by men...

But what makes this book different is that it's not only a furious act of activism in itself, it's also a loving and luminous tribute to Liliana, CRG's younger sister, murdered by a possessive ex-boyfriend when she was just 20, an architecture student with what should have been a whole life ahead of her.

CRG reconstructs Liliana's story via her friends and relatives but also through her own writings from letters to teenage diaries - and the latter, especially, will create a close bond with any female reader as we recognise all those milestones: the first kiss, the first 'real' boyfriend, first love...

The message of this book couldn't be more personal and terrifying: Liliana is an ordinary young woman whose only 'fault' according to her murderer is claiming the freedom and independence to make her own choices about her life - and dies for it.

This is a book about how women are in the world - Liliana is us.