Bless Me, Papi (Curbstone Books / Northwestern University Press) by Dominican-American poet and memoirist Ayendy Bonifacio is the author’s debut work of young adult fiction. In Bless Me, Papi, a first-person narrator, thirteen-year-old Domingo José Sepulveda Jr., receives communiques from his deceased father in the form of a pigeon and a ghost. As Domingo pursues these otherworldly apparitions, accompanied by his friend and cousin, further developments tilt his world deeper into the surreal and spectral. Bonifacio’s coming-of-age narrative encompasses grief and mourning, juxtaposing it with daily violence and unbreakable teenage bonds.