The Everything I Have Lost [Hardcover]

Skipping Stones Honor Award, Multicultural Books

12-year-old Julia keeps a diary about her life growing up in Juarez, Mexico. Life in Juarez is strange. People say it's the murder capital of the world. Dads gone a lot. They cant play outside because it isnt safe. Drug cartels rule the streets. Cars and people disappear, leaving behind pet cats. Then Dad disappears and Julia and her brother go live with her aunt in El Paso. Whats happened to her Dad? Julia wonders. Is he going to disappear forever? A coming-of-age story set in todays Juarez.

Sylvia Z?lenyis a bilingual author from Sonora, M?xico. Sylvia has published several short-story collections and novels in Spanish. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso where she is currently the Director of the Online Creative Writing MFA program. In 2016 she created CasaOctavia, a residence for women and LGBTQ writers from Latin America.

Julia keeps listslists of everything she loses. Eventually those lists include her dad and her home. Writing in her diary keeps her going but shell need more than that to find the truth.Foreword Review
The Everything I Have Lostcaptures a girls blossoming understanding of violence, family dysfunction, and what it means to grow up.

Booklist
Z?leny's lively novel, written in the form of a diary, captures Julia's voice perfectly as she matures. Julia's life is very different from most readers, but Z?leny's approachable, inviting writing makes it resonant on a broad scale.Donna Scanlon

Publishers Weekly
Conveying the grim challenges Julia faces, Z?leny creates a fierce, funny, and full-of-feeling protagonist whose staccato diary entries pull the reader along.

Latinx In Publishing
Sylvia Z?leny makes her claim as one of the true contemporary voices to be heard on the US Mexican border. Her powerful stories are not to be missed and will hold canon for mlÓw