Title: Tell It To Me Singing by Tita Ramírez
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Genre: Literary fiction, Romance, Comedy, Contemporary
Culture: Cuban
Themes: Found family, Motherhood, Love

Love and the Cuban Revolution

Favorite Quote: I tell him everything. I can hear him breathing, taking it in. And then I tell him where I am.

A telenovela within a telenovela, Tell It to Me Singing by Tita Ramirez is a roller coaster of family drama, the Cuban revolution, and motherhood that is an absolute page turner. Full of secrets and confessions, Monica Campo is pregnant with her first child when, moments before being wheeled into emergency heart surgery, her mother confesses a long-held Monica’s father is not the man who raised her. But when her mother wakes up and begins having delusional episodes, Monica doesn’t know what to believe—whether the confession was real or just a channeling of the telenovela her mother watches nightly.

True to Cuban heritage, I read Monica’s found family story structured as a real-life telenovela; fully equipped with secrets, confessions, backstabbing, and fear. Written with loveable characters, this book was easy to read with a quick pace and plenty of plot twists to keep me guessing how Monica’s story would end. Flashbacks from Mirta, Monica’s mother, were the perfect complement to shed light on Mirta’s backstory and support the plot. Her flashbacks were pivotal to understanding the current circumstances and situations within the family. They read like an unconscious stream of consciousness which I thought was fitting considering Mirta was having surgery and would be under anesthesia.

I found the titling intriguing – “Dimelo cantando”, an old-school Cuban way of answering the phone, because so many things needed to be said or told but weren’t. Secrets told in short bursts between Monica and Mirta, moments where truth should have been found but was lost. Mirta was talking but not actually telling. I was sure that Mirta would ‘spill the tea’ on all the things that had happened in her past, but she didn’t because of fear, self-doubt, and the potential loss of love from her daughter.

I initially thought Monica would be a strong female lead for this story, but she proved to be quite unreliable and confused which ended up helping her in the long run. Forced to re-evaluate her life after her mother’s confession, Monica embarks on a self-discovery journey that has her questioning what truly makes a family. It is through this exploration of family that Ramirez challenged me (and the reader) to truly define ‘family’. Is it the person you’ve known all your life or those biologically related to you but absent for most of it. Can both be part of your family? These are just some of the challenging and thought-provoking questions I had while reading this book. Ramirez navigates family relationships and dynamics with intention and empathy.

Despite some of the heavier ideas within this book, comedy was a perfect way to lighten the mood and Ramirez does an excellent job of adding humor in the most unexpected ways and with perfect timing. From iguanas to a complicated argument between an ex-boyfriend, fiancé, and a questionable bodyguard to an illegal exotic animal trade there were so many times I couldn’t stop laughing. Situations where Monica ended up in the most unexpected places and countries where I found myself saying ‘Wait, what…. how did we end up here?’ and then I’m laughing out loud. These moments definitely kept me turning the page!

If you’re looking for fun family drama about motherhood, secrets and lovers, Tell It to Me Singing by Tita Ramirez is a must read, it releases July 9th. If you love Tell It To Me Singing, then you’ll also love One Year of Ugly by Caroline Mackenzie. You can find my review of One Year of Ugly here.