In Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed, bestselling and award-winning authors as well as up-and-coming voices interrogate the different myths and stereotypes about the Latinx diaspora. These fifteen original pieces delve into everything from ghost stories and superheroes, to memories in the kitchen and travels around the world, to addiction and grief, to identity and anti-Blackness, to finding love and speaking your truth. Full of both sorrow and joy, Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed is an essential celebration of this rich and diverse community.
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So, this is going to be a different, much shorter sort of review. The main reason is because the book I’m “reviewing” is a book of essays by a number of different authors. These essays cover the true experiences of those authors, and I do not feel that I can “rate” their experiences in any sort of way. How can you tell someone that what they experienced is only worth one to five stars? I know I don’t generally rate books, but still. The idea of “reviewing” someone’s lived experience feels weird to me.
Nevertheless, I would like to say that the book, and all the essays therein, provided very visceral and unfiltered points-of-view on what it is like to be a part of the Latine diaspora. Some of the stories made me cry, others made me angry (on behalf of the writers, of course). And some made me happy when the good things happened.
Every essay is raw and honest, with the experiences of the authors overlapping in some ways and deviating from each other in others. They were all experiences I have never and will never have, as I am not part of the Latine diaspora. But they all explain themselves in such simple, beautiful ways that readers of all backgrounds are sure to come away with a modicum of understanding.
If you are interested in the Latine diaspora, please check out this book.
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