"Zore Neal Hurston coined the phrase 'a familiar strangeness, ' an idea that perhaps best describes what it feels like to read Dia Felix's debut novel,
Nochita ... [Nochita] is perhaps one of the most empathetic characters I have encountered in contemporary fiction, but she's not a pushover. This seeming contradiction is what makes Nochita and the novel that bears her name just that, novel."–
The Los Angeles Review "Dia Felix's haunting language puts the reader under a spell: Her prose travels from dream to reality without alerting the reader to its shifts. The result is a slippery delicious experience.
Nochita is such a sympathetic character that I'd like to rent a cabin in the mountains and invite her and a shaman to do natural hallucinogens."–
The Brooklyn Rail "
Nochita's first-person voice succeeds astonishingly well at feeling like a real, live consciousness ... [The book]'s ultra-appealing narration makes it easy to hold on even through the most experimental passages: her observations are startling, poetic but not precious, and often very funny. The book has the ache and texture of life anywhere."–Daphne Sidor,
Lamda Literary Review "Felix's triumphant first novel falls somewhere between poetry and prose ... which sparkles and snaps with verbal vitality."–
Booklist "With its California counterculture setting, frank descriptions of teenage sex, and colorfully intriguing characters ... Felix has written a modern fairy tale with a dark side ... [Her] inventive prose makes the journey worth it–Erika W. Smith,
BUST Magazine "Everything is epic and unreal, this world by turns seeming to taunt us with an uncanny narrative and then stop us in our tracks with dreamlike non sequiturs."–
SF Weekly "
Nochita is a compelling, spellbinding and daring book."–
Shameless Magazine "Felix blends vivid descriptions of Nochita's fantasies with spars details of her actual reality and focuses the reader's attention on the intimate, imaginative, and unique, the inner world that we create for ourselves. This is something most great works of fiction do, but it is the cinematic and evocative quality of Felix's renderings that gives her storytelling such a deliciously peculiar flavor."–
Eleven Eleven "
Nochita shimmers with humor and delight, she burns with stark raving intelligence."–Mary Gaitskill
"In
Nochita, Dia Felix builds an extraordinarily rich and inventive language to carry the kaleidoscopic point of view of her young protagonist. What a pleasure to open a book and find such exuberant and committed artistry. A stunning debut."–Janet Fitch
"There is a way some writers say hello on the first page that gets me excited to be in their conversation.
Nochita has it with teeth!! I love this book and the weird strong eye it has on the world, melting clothes off bodies with a crème brulée torch."–CAConrad, author of
The Book of Frank "Felix's
Nochita is but one of the [Sister Spit's] army of heroines and heroes for whom traditional roles and expected timelines no longer serve, who are ready to stop pretending in order to strike out for a vague "something else." Health and wealth is not always forthcoming in these stories, but keeping it real is."–
48 Hills "
Nochita is lyrical but at the same time graphic and raw ... [it] draws us in with dark humor, cynicism, and contradictions. I can definitely see this as a captivating film with its fascinating characters and introspective plot. Any takers?"–
Underrated Reads "Ultimately, what is more triumphant than Felix's artistry is the voice it gives to those like
Nochita, those that are wandering through the world, learning from the world, and running away moment by moment chasing even more of the world. Felix presents us with a protagonist that pierces us with her wisdom: 'The thing to remember about suffering is how it always ends.'"–
Mary Journal
