Once Upon a Quinceañera book cover In her debut YA novel, Once Upon a Quinceañera, Monica Gomez-Hira takes on coming of age, tradition, Latinidad, and patriarchal family structures through the lens of the quince. Her protagonist, Carmen Aguilar, ends up working as a hired performer at the quinceañera of her cousin Ariana, the same cousin who robbed Carmen of her own quince three years earlier. Against a vibrant Miami backdrop, Carmen navigates intergenerational family dynamic

While the border is commonly depicted as a site of danger or crisis, Ruiz shows it as a place of community and care. Families move between cultures with ease, switching between Spanish and English, crossing bridges and borders not in fear but as a part of daily life. This depiction honors South Texas as complex, vibrant, and deeply American.

This book is, in many ways, a love letter to the Southwest—especially Colorado and New Mexico.