A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE · A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK · REVIEWED ON THE FRONT COVER From GMA BOOK CLUB PICK and WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana , an electrifying new novel about a woman who has lost everything but the chance to finally tell her story “Will have you LAUGHING line after line...Cruz AIMS FOR THE HEART, and fires.” ― Los Angeles Times "An endearing portrait of a FIERCE, FUNNY woman." ― The Washington Post Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of twelve sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight. Structurally inventive and emotionally kaleidoscopic, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is Angie Cruz’s most ambitious and moving novel yet, and Cara is a heroine for the ages. An Amazon Best Book of September 2022: Narrated by Cara Romero, a 56-year-old Dominican woman in the Bronx, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is not just a breath of fresh air but a steady and wry portrait of a woman navigating loss (“a husband that almost killed me, and a son that will not return home”), friends, eviction, the seduction of internet scams, and unemployment. The novel is structured around Cara’s unemployment counseling sessions, during which she expounds vivaciously and honestly about her life—her coffee rituals, the son who abandoned her, the harsh reality of her childhood—when she’s asked simple and straightforward questions like “when can you work?” The result is gloriously funny (and also devastating) vignettes that shrewdly demonstrate how much our government institutions overlook the cultural, social, and economic differences of those who are not white, wealthy, and educated. An exuberant novel, unlike anything I’ve ever read, that I gulped down in one sitting. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor A New York Times Book Review Notable Book · Reviewed on the Front Cover A New York Times Editor's Choice A Best Book of the Year ( The New York Times, The Washington Post , BookRiot, Amazon) A Latino Book Awards Gold Medal Winner Finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize A Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction Nominee A Most Anticipated Book ( The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Morning America, The TODAY Show, Real Simple, Oprah Daily, BookRiot, Bustle, The Millions, PopSugar, AV Club, LitHub, Ms. Magazine , AARP, Kirkus Reviews , Katie Couric Media, Brit + Co) “Taut and poignant…Luckily for us, Cara is an oversharer… drawing us in with her magnetic storytelling and breezy self-confidence …In projecting Cara’s voice, Cruz prioritizes the importance of seeing an individual’s humanity even within the most impersonal of systems…Like the novel itself, Cara resists classification. More than a job, or a cure, she requires a patient audience with whom she can share her most intimate secrets.” ― The New York Times Book Review (cover review) “ How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water will have you laughing line after line , even when you wonder if you should be. (The answer is always yes!) By the time her sessions are up, though, you’ll feel like many of those who know Ms. Romero; that her incessant chatter has become as life-sustaining as the substance she can’t stop drinking…Cruz never misses. Her new novel aims for the heart, and fires.” ― Los Angeles Times “An ode to human connection...The story, told in Cara’s unfailingly frank, sometimes hilarious, voice, quickly expands like the bellows of an accordion…Cruz once again offers a fresh glimpse of immigration, womanhood, aspiration and gentrification… Cara is a character to love … How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water delivers a sense of the enduring worth of relationships, life experiences and determination as currencies in a difficult world.” ― The Washington Post “ [I] fell head-over-heels with the protagonist…Cara is warm, resilient, revealing and unintentionally funny. Remarkably, over the course of the novel, she arrives at believable self-realization, understanding that she is not a saint and accepting the role she has played in some of her misfortunes. By the book’s end, I wanted to sit at Cara’s kitchen table and eat her famous pastillas (made without raisins because she hates them).” ― San Francisco Chronicle “What a joy to imm