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Liliana's Invincible Summer

A Sister's Search for Justice

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Liliana's Invincible Summer

By: Cristina Rivera Garza
Narrated by: Victoria Villarreal
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Bloomsbury presents Liliana's Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza, read by Victoria Villarreal.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR MEMOIR
A 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
A NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, TIME AND NEW YORKER BOOK OF THE YEAR

‘Meticulously written and deeply moving . . . A triumph’ JACKIE KAY
‘Absorbing and poetic’ ECONOMIST
‘Full of tenderness and beauty’ MARIANA ENRIQUEZ

From one of Mexico’s greatest contemporary writers, an astonishing work of non-fiction that illuminates an epidemic of femicide in Mexico through the death of one woman.

I seek justice, I finally said. I seek justice for my sister . . . Sometimes it takes twenty-nine years to say it out loud, to say it out loud on a phone call with a lawyer at the General Attorney’s office: I seek justice.

On the dawn of 16 July 1990, Liliana Rivera Garza, Cristina Rivera Garza’s sister, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend and subsumed into Mexico's dark and relentless history of femicide.

She was a twenty-year-old architecture student who had been trying for years to end her relationship with a high school boyfriend who insisted on not letting her go. A few weeks before the tragedy, Liliana made a definitive decision: at the height of her winter she had discovered that, as Albert Camus had said, there was an invincible summer in her. She would leave him behind. She would start a new life. She would do a master's degree and a doctorate; she would travel to London. But his decision was that she would not have a life without him.

Returning to Mexico after decades of living in the United States, Cristina Rivera Garza collects and curates evidence – handwritten letters, police reports, school notebooks, voice recordings and architectural blueprints – to defy a pattern of increasingly normalised, gendered violence and understand the life lost. What she finds is Liliana: her sister’s voice crossing time and, like that of so many disappeared and outraged women in Mexico, demanding justice.©2023 Cristina Rivera Garza (P)2023 Penguin Random House LLC Gender Studies Murder Social Sciences True Crime Violence in Society Crime Latin American Mexico
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Critic reviews

A personal and cultural look at femicide in Mexico
Not everything can be put into words, especially grief and rage, no matter how precise and skilled the writing is. The beauty of this book is that it reaches for that truth regardless, and in doing so, Liliana becomes indelible. She is so fully realized that by the end, the reader is also mourning. I will be thinking of Liliana for a very long time, perhaps forever
Despite her furnace of rage, Rivera Garza maintains perfect composure . . . Each tightly drawn chapter showcases an array of gorgeous images or cadences; few authors deploy fragments as brilliantly, like grenades … Both a master stroke and a critical inflection point in her country’s brutal, patriarchal politics
Anger at this lack of accountability seethes through Ms Rivera Garza’s book. Her main goal, however, is not an abstract analysis of femicide but to chronicle a life lost to it. She does so movingly . . . Absorbing and poetic
By displaying the fragmented, liminal space in which Liliana and her friends discuss Liliana’s life, Rivera Garza is bearing witness to the dearth of ways they had to speak about violence that was right in front of them . . . Rivera Garza’s book makes me certain, it shouldn’t be a woman’s responsibility to teach society about the dangers she faces
A moving, heart-wrenching memoir as well as an unflinching appraisal of the widespread violence against women in Mexico
Liliana’s Invincible Summer bravely examines society’s methodical misogyny and the devastating long-term effects a murder has on a family. How grief keeps a different clock. How a family are placed in limbo land. But most moving of all is the way a bereaved sister manages to give Liliana back her voice so that Liliana is brimful of life (Jackie Kay)
Rivera Garza’s book is a blueprint of one woman’s murder, but it is the trail of hundreds of thousands of women throughout the globe. I was shaken and alerted by her investigation into her own grief. It has educated me to speak up as she has bravely done (Sandra Cisneros)
Warning: Cristina Rivera Garza is an explosive writer. A dexterous creator of atmospheres, with a powerful style, an evocative and indomitable language (Lina Merwane, praise for Cristina Rivera Garza)
Cristina Rivera Garza is a masterful storyteller. Through extensive research she reconstructs her sister’s murder and the investigation that followed. Though deeply personal, this work is also a strong protest against the high number of femicides in Mexico and the absence of justice (Jennifer Clement, author of GUN LOVE)
All stars
Most relevant
Rivera Garza’s Liliana’s Invincible Summer offers an extraordinary recount of feminicide, exposing how justice and prejudice intertwine within systemic violence.
Through family memory, love, and care, she transforms grief into resistance and remembrance into a form of justice.
Her magical, tender narration becomes a collective act of healing — a luminous call for justice for women affected by violence.

“Memory as Justice: Rivera Garza’s Luminous Recount of Feminicide”

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incredible writing and great audio reading. I'm usually a lover of detail heavy, data heavy non fiction, especially about issues of social justice, feminism, social violence, and trauma. But this intimate portage of Liliana, the author's sister, bears the brutal consequences of her gender.

The establishment of feminicide in Mexico City as a frighteningly common statistic builds the walls of this book; Rivera Garza fills these walls with as much of Liliana as can be put in the pages of a book. Her tics, her loves, her passions, her attitudes, her vivality. An incredible book; an incredibly brave endeavor for Rivera Garza to embark on. I wept reading it.

uncommonly moving, unbelievably important

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This is one of many stories of the brutal act of femicide. It’s a sisters telling of a brutal crime and her sister’s, Liliana, attempt to escape a cycle of abuse. This book starts with bureaucracy of just trying to find information and becomes a retelling of her sisters short life. Read this book it’s both informative and heartbreaking.

Required reading

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This is a really sad story of the murder of the author's sister, Liliana, by her ex-partner which very sensitively details what is known of her, especially her last few months and her relationship with her ex partner and desire to break away from his controlling behaviour. It's a very moving book.

However, whilst the author makes the point about femicide being a result of attitudes throughout society that, until recently, weren't understood or taken seriously, I didn't feel that there was enough focus on that e.g. whether there was any progress in tackling femicide or what strategies governments can take to reduce it.

Tragic story but wider context would have been interesting

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A well paced and very realistic account of a case of domestic abuse in Mexico that leaves you thinking long after you finish

A realistic and engaging story

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