This daring and provocative story collection chronicles the lives of thirteen young Mexican women confronting remarkable hardships. The bold, unrepentant voices of Reservoir Bitches bait readers with moral dilemmas that undermine stereotypes—for instance, that women are inherently good and incapable of violence even when it’s necessary for them to survive and thrive. 

Among the collection’s formidable characters are a drug lord’s daughter, a victim of transfemicide, an assassin, and a socialite feigning a native heritage to support her politician husband. The collection captivates with vivid scenes, documentary-style storytelling, and diaristic streams of consciousness. De la Cerda maneuvers through contentious topics with unflinching honesty and dark humor. 

Each of the thirteen stories is rendered in the first person, inviting readers into the characters’ inner worlds. The inclusion of a haunting ghost story in “The Smile,” narrated by a gang rape victim introduced as La Negra, adds an eerie, supernatural layer. De la Cerda uses the supernatural to illuminate the experiences and emotions of historically silenced voices, infusing their stories with a despairing intensity that resonates.

The collection opens with a story about Diana, a student and self-proclaimed party girl who feels trapped in an endless loop of poor life choices. She decides to terminate her unwanted pregnancy by administering misoprostol. The reader isn’t spared the agonizing physical symptoms of enduring a solitary medication-induced abortion at home. As Diana clings to the toilet, sobbing in fear and anger, the reader shares in her grief.

 Additional excruciating moments confront the reader in the interwoven narratives that follow. In “God Forgive Us” and “God Didn’t Come Through,” a fateful and fierce encounter between two unnamed characters from impoverished neighborhoods in Mexico — described as a place where the “houses got smaller and smaller, and the wrong kind of people moved in”— leaves an indelible impression. Rendering the encounter from each character’s perspective, de la Cerda offers complementary facets of the complex and stark realities of poverty.

In “Yuliana,” the heiress of a drug lord reports on her close friendship with Regina, the daughter of a powerful politician. Regina, fascinated by Yuliana’s opulent cartel life, wishes to become part of Yuliana’s world. She reaches out to Yuliana through social media, enrolls in the same private school, and adopts a new persona. Regina’s evolution culminates as Yuliana coaxes her into playing a dangerous role that ultimately leads to a tragic turn of events. Plagued by guilt, Yuliana reveals her softer side while hinting at inherited traumas, referencing the child abuse that occurs within the inner workings of drug cartels: “sometimes they use us kids as peace offerings; like, marrying us off to seal a business deal,” concluding, “Women always speak, think, and act from the memory of our pain.” 

Expanding this idea, de La Cerda engenders empathy for Karla, a merciless assassin known as La China, by hinting at her painful backstory of domestic violence. Driven by the need to provide for her young daughter and with few other options, Karla chooses a life of crime—and thrives in it. Her criminal journey include gang affiliations, imprisonment for drug possession, and a murder she claims she did not commit. Six months into her sentence, Karla’s gutsy demeanor and iron resolve capture the attention of a drug cartel, leading to her training as an assassin. 

Altogether the stories brim with commentary on contemporary womanhood, not neglecting its intersections with queerness. One standout example appears in “Sequins,”  in which Julia, a transgender woman who is raped, poignantly concludes, “Masculinity is like marzipan: fragile as hell, queen.” The theme of migration is threaded seamlessly into the collection’s fabric as well, including references to perilous migrant journeys from Chiapas to the northern border of Mexico on the freight train known as “The Beast.” De la Cerda’s graphic depictions of violent femmes fatales—both domestic and sexual—urge readers to confront chronic misogyny, which de la Cerda satirizes through the portrayal of largely one-dimensional male characters. 

In these interlaced narratives de la Cerda critiques political and social norms while challenging readers to reach beyond their own experiences. The braiding of iconic cultural figures like Mexican singer and songwriter Juan Gabriel, the band Pequênos Musical, and references to American blockbuster movies like Almost Famous, Legally Blonde, and Miss Congeniality create a compelling fusion of artistic motifs. De la Cerda also makes intriguing use of folkloric imagery like Charro Negro, the devil’s debt collector, and the dandyish El Catrín.

With sharp social criticism and sardonic humor, de la Cerda balances brutality with compelling portrayals of characters whom readers may otherwise be tempted to condemn. While the author’s casual language and profanity may distract some readers, her alluring style creates space for her complex themes to unfold, solidifying Reservoir Bitches as a work of narrative art and a powerful testament to diverse experiences and stories that deserve to be heard. 

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Dahlia de la Cerda is an award-winning writer and as an activist based in Aguascalientes, Mexico. She is the co-founder of the feminist organization Morras Help Morras, in Mexico. Reservoir Bitches is her English-language debut.

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Translator Heather Cleary teaches at Sarah Lawerence College and is the author of The Translator’s Visibility: Scenes from Contemporary Latin American Fiction.

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Julia Sanches translates literature from Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan into English. Born in Brazil, she now lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

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Britta Stromeyer is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Her stories appear in Flash Fiction Magazine and Bending Genres Journal. She was a finalist for the Bellingham Review Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction. She holds an MFA from Dominican University, CA, an MA from American University, and a Certificate in Novel Writing from Stanford University.