L.A. Weather: A Novel (Paperback)
Staff Reviews
This LA-set story will quickly set its claws and pull you through a manic year in the lives of a well-off Mexican American family. Father, mother, and all three daughters have crises that vary from much ado about nothing to much-delayed ados about everything. You will smile gleefully as the family completes the eventful year with stronger bonds than ever.
— Kay Wosewick
Keila has been married to Oscar for nearly forty years, so when she sits down with her three daughters and tells them she’s getting divorced, her girls, Claudia, Olivia, and Patricia, are shocked and angry. And then, over the course of one year, the three of them see their own marriages self-destruct. But that just scratches the surface of what happens to this family, which has more secrets than you can imagine. I so enjoyed the author’s vision of Los Angeles and personally appreciated the Jewish references sprinkled in the story – Keila is the daughter of Holocaust survivors who resettled in Mexico City. Yes, L.A. Weather’s outrageous plot twists have a telenovela quality, as the Alvarados contend with just about every complication a family can face, except for maybe locusts. But they make it through (mostly), a little wiser for the journey, and it’s hard not to fall in love with them and all their messiness.
— Daniel GoldinDescription
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK • 2022 INTERNATIONAL LATINO BOOK AWARD WINNER FOR FICTION
FORECAST: Storm clouds are on the horizon in L.A. Weather, a fun, fast-paced novel of a Mexican American family from the author of the #1 Los Angeles Times bestseller Esperanza’s Box of Saints.
“There’s a 100% chance you’ll be paging through this book to uncover the secrets and deception that could potentially burn everything down!”—Reese Witherspoon
“This is by far one of the most endearing L.A. novels in recent memory.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A lively and ambitious family novel."—New York Times Book Review
Oscar, the weather-obsessed patriarch of the Alvarado family, desperately wants a little rain. L.A. is parched, dry as a bone, and he’s harboring a costly secret that distracts him from everything else. His wife, Keila, desperate for a life with a little more intimacy and a little less Weather Channel, feels she has no choice but to end their marriage.
Their three daughters—Claudia, a television chef with a hard-hearted attitude; Olivia, a successful architect who suffers from gentrification guilt; and Patricia, a social media wizard who has an uncanny knack for connecting with audiences but not with her lovers—are left questioning everything they know. Each will have to take a critical look at her own relationships and make some tough decisions along the way.
With quick wit and humor, María Amparo Escandón follows the Alvarado family as they wrestle with impending evacuations, secrets, deception, and betrayal, and their toughest decision yet: whether to stick together or burn it all down.
About the Author
María Amparo Escandón is the author of #1 L.A. Times bestseller Esperanza’s Box of Saints and González & Daughter Trucking Co. Named a writer to watch by both Newsweek and the L.A. Times, she was born in Mexico City and has lived in Los Angeles for nearly four decades.
Praise For…
BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times • Real Simple • Library Journal • Harper’s Bazaar
A BEST BOOK OF SEPTEMBER: PopSugar • Barnes & Noble • Bustle • CNN • E! News • Ms. Magazine • Nylon • GMA (and more!)
“This story beautifully weaves together the theme of family and uses weather as a metaphor to peel back the curtain on the layered lives of three sisters and their parents.” —Reese Witherspoon
“Enchanting.” —Oprah Quarterly
“Warm, witty, and funny, this novel makes the perfect, curl-up-on-the-couch long weekend read.” —Amazon Book Review (Editors’ Pick)
“A heartfelt, laugh-out-loud novel about the highs and lows of family life.” —Real Simple
"A warmhearted domestic drama with political undercurrents makes for fun reading." —Kirkus
"Absorbing, moving, comic and tragic, L.A. Weather will capture readers and never let them go." —Shelf Awareness
"A year in the life of a Mexican Jewish family whose problems include a near-drowning, a drought and drama galore as the marriages of the parents and all three daughters go off the rails." —People
"Escandón folds weighty issues—immigration, climate change, gentrification—into a lively, slyly humorous family story." —Library Journal
“María Amparo Escandón captures brilliantly the sights, sounds, and scents of the metropolis—each enclave with its own language, music, foods, and customs.” —Washington Independent Review of Books
“María Amparo Escandón is bold. Who dares to write about the weather in Los Angeles? Unlike the warm and benign climate cliché that can so easily be ignored, the complicated richness that makes up the Alvarado family can be appreciated from the first paragraph.” —Laura Esquivel, author of Like Water for Chocolate
"A phenomenal story about the Mexican-American experience in L.A: fun, quirky, heart-wrenching, very human and full of soul. Read it and realize how much we all share (beyond the weather). María Amparo Escandón is a superb and unique observer." —Jorge Ramos, award-winning journalist and author of No Borders
“Take it from María Amparo Escandón—it’s not always 72 and sunny in Los Angeles. Known for her sly humor, she brings us a surprising story about family life in one of America’s most complex cities." —Reyna Grande, author of Across A Hundred Mountains
"There is no other voice as quick-witted and sharp as María Amparo Escandón’s. In L.A. Weather she displays yet again her talent for creating engaging characters who leap off the page and linger like old friends or cherished relatives. As the Alvarados face shifts of tectonic proportions, Escandón confronts how families test our understanding of not just ourselves, but of the very world around us." —Alex Espinoza, author of Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime and Still Water Saints
“Messy lives of women, well told. What could be better?” —Rodrigo García, writer and director of Nine Lives and Mother and Child
