Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This book releases from Random House on September 17th, 2024 in the US. Unfortunately, I chose to stop reading the book at 47% due to extremely fatphobic and ableist language.

This is my second foray into Enriquez's work. I withheld my reservations about my first experience with her (The Dangers of Smoking in Bed) because I was new to Bookstagram, who loves her, as well as new to translated literature, which I understand has some nuances when it comes to diction. I was excited to explore Enriquez's latest collection and see whether or not I had the same issues. Turns out, I did.

First of all, a lot of these stories just didn't work for me. "My Sad Dead" was a really strong start, but after that, I got halfway through the book and didn't enjoy any of the other stories. 

The titular story, "A Sunny Place for Shady People," follows a journalist to Skid Row to report on a group that holds rituals honoring Elisa Lam. For those who don't know, Elisa Lam was a real person who mysteriously died in Los Angeles in 2013 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elisa_Lam). Elisa was bipolar and had likely been off her medication at the time of her death. As such, her death was ruled an accidental drowning, with many suspecting she was experiencing a psychotic episode due to her bizarre behavior in surveillance footage that is the last known sighting of her. However, not all the evidence points in this direction, and many people still suspect Elisa was the victim of foul-play. Either way, Elisa was a 21-year old neurodivergent Chinese American woman who died a tragic death, and Enriquez's use of her story in this book feels particularly exploitative.

The story that put the nail in the coffin for me was "Julie." In this story, the narrator's cousin Julie moves back to Buenos Aires after a childhood in the US. Julie started seeing "invisible friends" as the result of seances her parents hosted as social gatherings. Almost immediately, the narrator describes Julie as fat. Several scenes describe how Julie eats with her hands, shoveling fistfuls of food into her mouth at a time. The story describes Julie as "ob3se" multiple times, including in this quote:

For those who aren't aware, the word "ob3se" is considered a fatphobic slur by many because of its medicalized, stigmatizing history and how it pathologizes fat bodies. It is derived from medical language that often equates higher body weight with disease, labeling fat bodies as inherently unhealthy, without considering individual health differences. It is also frequently used in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes about fat people, such as being lazy, unhealthy, or lacking self-control. The Body Mass Index (BMI), which classifies people as "ob3se" or "overweight," is widely critiqued for being an inaccurate and incomplete measure of health. As such, many body liberation advocates prefer terms like "fat," which some have reclaimed as a neutral descriptor without moral or medical judgment. 

Beyond the fatphobia, Julie is assumed to be schizophrenic due to her "invisible friends," leading to some ableism and sanism about psychotic people. 

Despite these concerns, I tried to read the story that follows "Julie" and found it just as disappointing as the others. With this in mind, I chose to DNF A Sunny Place for Shady People at 47%. I am not familiar with all the nuances of translated literature, so I am unsure if this is a problem with Enriquez's writing or McDowell's translation, but I am unlikely to seek out Enriquez's work in the future.