ANALICIA SOTELO

"What's most refreshing about this collection is that the women whose voices are rendered so beautifully here, not just the daughters and mothers but even Ariadne herself, shatter stereotypes of femininity and highlight truths that might discomfort but are a vivid testament to the world we live in today." — Michael Magras

"Poet Analicia Sotelo penned her latest collection to upend tropes of the helpless damsel, inspired by an Italian painter’s dream-like depiction of womanly strength in the throes of vulnerability." — Jennifer Hijazi

Wilder Forms: Our Fourteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets

50 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018

"Sotelo’s first collection of poetry, Virgin, is the poetry of a Texas already transformed, free of masculine brooding. The Houston poet, who grew up in Laredo and San Antonio, is challenging deeply seated tropes.” — Aaron E. Sanchez

"Though there are a number of arresting poems about the speaker’s negotiation of her roles as daughter or lover, the most telling ones underscore a woman’s awareness of her own agency, like the poem that imagines the speaker rejecting the ideologies of female sainthood in favor of embracing a flawed image as a radical act of self-acceptance." — Rigoberto González

"Though far from being a feminist polemic, Virgin nevertheless pulls no punches when it comes to deconstructing toxic masculinity. But Sotelo’s writing also embraces ambiguity, and all the inevitable messiness that comes with lust, love and self-discovery." — Chris Weber

The Best Reviewed Books of 2018

"The Virgin Mary, and physical virginity, are largely absent from Sotelo’s debut. In a book much about young Latina sexuality, and who constructs and controls it, what’s not present is as relevant as what is.” — Daisy Fried