Teresa Carbajal Ravet, Austin Latino Neighborhoods Examiner, July 30, 2010
I received Lady Q, The Rise and Fall of a Latin Queen to review as part of Condor Book Tours and it was a very difficult read on numerous levels. Authors Reymundo Sanchez and Sonia Rodriguez were former gang members of the Latin King/Queen Nation of the Humboldt Park area in Chicago, Illinois. It is the bloody, raw experience of gang life, a fraught life on the streets of Chicago amid drugs, violence, unprotected sex, and family dysfunction. A life in which children experience a bitter and distant, if not absent, family connection, young boys and girls yearn for personal warmth and acceptance and do not find it within their home, and the adolescent experience is that of a violation in order to belong and feel protected. The life of immature girls abused by the sexual predators among their relatives and finally giving into the sexual advances from the males in their gang families, all completely unrelated to human love or nurture. And the dysfunctional cycle goes on and on and on without hope of closure. A most difficult read indeed, almost to the point of disbelief. MORE.
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