Malas: A GMA Book Club Pick

From a brilliant new voice comes a story full of passion and  revenge, following one family living on the Texas Mexico border—and a curse that reverberates across generations

In 1951, a strange old woman appears on Pilar Aguierre’s doorstep in La Cienega, Texas. The old woman is sure Pilar stole her husband and, in a heated outburst, lays a curse on Pilar and her family.

Thirty years later, Lulu Muñoz is dodging her family at every turn: her troubled father’s moods—and his rules—but most of all her upcoming quinceañera. When her beloved grandmother passes away, Lulu finds herself drawn to the glamorous older woman who crashed her grandmother’s funeral and who lives on the alone and shunned on the edge of town.

Their unexpected kinship picks at the secrets of Lulu’s family’s past and surfaces truths deeper and more profound than her teenage concerns. As the quinceañera looms—and we move between these two strong, irascible female voices—one woman must make peace with the past, and one girl pushes to embrace her future.

Rich with cinematic details—from dusty rodeos to sickly sweet pan de polvo cookies to the excitement of a Selena concert and the comfort of conjunto ballads played at family gatherings—this memorable debut is a love letter to the Tejano culture and community that sustain both of these women as they discover what family means.