Their Dogs Came with Them by Helena Maria Viramontes is this week’s Latino Book Club Pick. That the book would be about immigrants is all too obvious to anyone who knows anything about writers’ tendencies to put sarcasm and irony in their titles.

Their Dogs Came with Them chronicles the life of immigrants living in the eastern Los Angeles Area in the unrest-filled 1960s.

Within its pages we become acquainted with Luis Lil Lizard, a despicable gang member whose sister is so desperate to get his brotherly stamp to help out her self-esteem that she resorts to adhering to his bawdy lifestyle. But the turbulent 1960s doesn’t have much to offer a Latina, so Turtle, said sister, becomes a street worker, upon his deployment to Vietnam.

The author names almost all her characters after reptiles and amphibians, perhaps hinting not so subtly at the characters’ dysfunction. Even someone like the college-bound Ben is troubled, and emerges as nothing more than a slight depressive, while Ermilia, a progressive-minded chica who manages to escape the tough streets, but can’t pull away from militancy.

Marie Arana’s first novel Cellophane centers upon Don Victor Sobrevilla Paniagua, a visionary, ambitious, if not dreamy patriach who goes to eastern Peru to built a paper empire after having his fortune delivered by a monkey.

The book takes a lot of shots at colonial Catholicism and traditional medicine in the Andes when studied beyond the surface and attests to Arana’s gift as a wondrous storyteller, for sure.

This week’s pick is Reyna Grande’s fictional work Across a Hundred Mountains, which tells the story of little Juana, a pre-teen caught up in border troubles.

Her little sister dies in a flood, triggering her father to leave Mexico in search of a better life across the border. But Juana’s tragedy-filled life doesn’t end here; a greedy, ruthless money lender lays claim to Juana’s newly-born brother and Juana’s being taken in by Adelina, a woman who sells her, ahem, services to survive, is seen at first as a blessing, but has long-term complications.

You can also check out the Spanish edition A Través de Cien Montañas, which was originally released two days after the English version.

Be sure to check out the next edition of the Latino Book Club.

From Bananas to Buttocks: The Latina Body in Popular Film and Culture and its 336 pages are very much worth your time. Mya Mendible, a contributor to American Sexuality magazine and a professor of indisciplinary studies at Florida Gulf Coast University traces the world’s fascination with the Latina body, starting from Carmen Miranda, the tropical fruit-carrying Brazilian bombshell from Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age, to Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, and the legendary Celia Cruz among others.

Lara Rios’s book Becoming Latina in 10 Easy Steps is a rather charming little book. The book details the life of one Marcela Gonzalez, the half-White, Mexican who’s constantly chastised for not being Mexican enough.

So like any “ethnic” person criticized for not being “ethnic” enough, she sets out to remedy this problem, by trying to be as Mexican as can be! And being “Mexican” as can be involves dating George Ramirez, the only dateable Mexican male she knows; thing is that in her quest to become as Latina as possible, George is a hindrance, because he’s a non-Spanish speaking Latino.

This book is hilarious, and despite the fact that it just might rile up a lot of people just from the title, is really worth your time.

Needless to say, you should also check out the follow-up (of some sort) to the book Becoming Americana, which is equally charming.

You have, you must read Caridad Pineiro’s saucy book Sex and the South Beach Chica as well as its sequel South Beach Chicas Catch Their Man. Good things do come in twos, as you know.

These books are so representative of the Chica Lit phenomenon and for good reason. The South Beach chicas are Juli, Adriana, Tori, and Sylvia, all upwardly-mobile Latinas who are missing romance in their lives and love in their corners, but not for long if the vampish Juli has something to say about it.

In this edition of the Latino Book Club, our selection is none other than Marie Arana’s American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood a poignant memoir in which the author recounts her dual identity—as a North American via her mother, and a South American via her aristocratic Peruvian high-society father.

If there’s a memoir out there that can thoroughly recount class schism in South America, it’s definitely this one.

Ever wish you could have the best of both worlds? Or in this case the best of all four worlds? You get this with Friday Night Chicas, a collection of stories by four of the hippest, sauciest Latina writers.

Berta Platas’s story is very Cinderella-like, and every high school geek’s fantasy: a one time popularity-challenged girl comes to her high school reunion, and blows everyone away with her transformation.

Caridad Pineiro known for her stories about Miami couldn’t stay away from that region as a subject, writing about long-time friends who gather to celebrate a mutual friend’s birthday.

Sofia Quintero, who’s also the author of Divas Don’t Yield, wrote her novella about New York chicas who learn about the meaning while planning a send-off party for a future bride. Mary Castillo’s story recounts the tale of a Latina who’s trying to make it in the entertainment industry, but has to do so while fighting the advances of a powerful film director.

Friday Night Chicas, is recommended, if only for the fact that four fabulous Latina novelists decided to team up to create the ultimate book.

Okay, we’ve gotten a little dose of Latin romance from one of the last entries in the Latino Book Club. But how about total romance? It comes in the form of Bonnie Matta’s Latino romance novel Faith. The protagonist the virginal, prudish Tejana Tatiana Madrigal, is a devoted Catholic Latina, who is a florist (a more romantic occupation, she couldn’t have had; a bookseller is the runner-up).

Up and away comes her Principe Azul, the ultra-masculine Manolo Guerra, a coffee plant businessman who is one of those dashing and debonair papi chulos Tatiana would probably have been warned about if her home education was anything other than catechism.

Now comes the hard part, who’s going to pull who in? Will Manolo become a monk to join Tatiana’s world, or will Tatiana have an explosive transformation into an irresistible vamp and make an entry in Manolo’s privileged and depraved world. Or can they meet somewhere in the middle.

Of Virgins and Latinos, and Romance.

Titilating isn’t it?

Living in Spanglish (St Martin’s Griffin) by Ed Morales immediately caught my eye. I mean how do you live in Spanglish? But I had my answer long before the end of the first chapter.

I think the book’s best point is the fact that it’s written by a seasoned journalist and writer like Ed Morales, who’s written for practically every major publication you can think of the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Rolling Stone, and of course New York cultural bastion The Village Voice.

Some may or may not agree with Mr. Morales’s view on how Hispanics navigate through their bicultural identity, but certainly Living in Spanglish is probably one of the best books on the subject that I’ve read. It has just the right balance of academic and introspectiveness to pull you in.