If You Liked this Telenovela, You’d Love this Book| Reminiscing on the ole’ days!

Greetings readers!

If there is one thing I know about myself it is that I got my love for dramatic flare from watching telenovelas. Hundreds of episodes of misunderstandings, chaos, messy villains, brutish fights and love triangles leaves an impression on a girl.

Now I was really young like 6-9 years old when my family went through their intense telenovela phase. I remember coming home from school to my cousin’s house where my aunts, older cousins and sisters sat around the TV to watch a novela. Then when our dad picked us up and to took us home we watched another novela! I was young and not very interested, but believe it or not I paid some attention!

We are less involved in watching novelas today, especially since the Latinx channel stopped showing them on cable TV. Now only that aforementioned cousin’s family still regularly watches novelas XD It’s basically their family time, I love it!

All this to say that my telenovela knowledge is minimal at best, but it is there. I may not have been so invested, but they are still a staple image in my childhood memories. And like I said, they are probably 99.99% responsible for the reason I love drama and scandal! XD

So why not reach into my memories and pair books with telenovelas? Anything for Latinx Heritage Month, I say!

REBELDE

via Wikipedia

Your high-school drama with musica! It’s the novela of my childhood days. My sisters and cousins used to watch it after school and on the weekends. I don’t really understand anything that went on, but I do remember the songs.

Book Rec: Never Look Back by Lilliam Rivera

I know what my RBD peeps are thinking. This book is all about Bachata and RBD was more of a pop rock, but both are about Latinx teens living their best musical lives so, I’m leaving it! I know I haven’t read it YET, but the connections are there I can feel it.

CÓDIGO POSTAL

via IMDb

I remember very little about this novela other than it was a bunch of surfer teens getting into trouble, falling in love and having fun at the beach! When I asked my cousins about it, the best memory they had of it was the theme song! Which had me thinking that a lot of telenovelas have iconic theme songs!

Book Rec: Don’t Date Rosa Santos by Nina Moreno

Rendz, you haven’t read this book either! I know, I know. BUT. I really caught on to the sea themes and from what I can tell from the synopsis this book is about teens by the sea falling in love, trying to figure out their futures. It might turn out that the sea theme is all they have in common, but I think they are still a worthy match XD!

AMOR REAL

via CineMaterial

My cousin was/is obsessed with this novela! I cannot even tell you the amount of times she has re-watched it or scavenged YouTube for clips! It’s a historical romance set in post-Independence Mexico. It is dramatic AF. From the plot to the characters to the costume to the twists and turns. I have a few memories of seeing this one on TV, but I think I paid more attention to the clothes than what was going on!

Book Rec: The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

While not set in Mexico, this gorgeous novel sweeps us into this Belle Epoque world full of beauty, betrayal and romance! I love this book so much! It gives us POVs of all three main characters including the “villainess” which I totally think this fits the telenovela bill perfectly.

Note: This book will be re-released on May 11, 2021!!!

Other honourable telenoleva mentions:

ALMA INDOMABLE – A diamond in the rough/Cinderella/good-girl vengeance story. Make of that what you will.

RUBI – Villain origin story. She is fierce and brutal and quite honestly a queen.

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That’s it for me friends! Let me know what you think! Have you ever watched a telenovela? Do you ever match books with shows you watch? Which Latinx book are you looking forward to reading?

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Happy reading!

~ Rendz