What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez

A powerful novel that's "hilarious, heartbreaking, and ass-kicking" (Jamie Ford) about a Puerto Rican family in Staten Island who discovers their long-missing sister is potentially alive and cast on a reality TV show, and sets out to bring her home.

Winner of the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction · Longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize · March Indie Next Pick · Belletrist, Phenomenal, Page & Pairing, and Readers Digest book club pick

The Ramirez women of Staten Island orbit around absence. When thirteen-year-old middle child Ruthy disappeared after track practice without a trace, it left the family scarred and scrambling. One night, twelve years later, oldest sister Jessica spots a woman on her TV screen in Catfight, a raunchy reality show. She rushes to tell her younger sister, Nina: This woman's hair is dyed red, and she calls herself Ruby, but the beauty mark under her left eye is instantly recognizable. Could it be Ruthy, after all this time?

The years since Ruthy's disappearance haven't been easy on the Ramirez family. It's 2008, and their mother, Dolores, still struggles with the loss, Jessica juggles a newborn baby with her hospital job, and Nina, after four successful years at college, has returned home to medical school rejections and is forced to work in the mall folding tiny bedazzled thongs at the lingerie store.

After seeing maybe-Ruthy on their screen, Jessica and Nina hatch a plan to drive to where the show is filmed in search of their long-lost sister. When Dolores catches wind of their scheme, she insists on joining, along with her pot-stirring holy roller best friend, Irene. What follows is a family road trip and reckoning that will force the Ramirez women to finally face the past and look toward a future-with or without Ruthy in it.

What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez is a vivid family portrait, in all its shattered reality, exploring the familial bonds between women and cycles of generational violence, colonialism, race, and silence, replete with snark, resentment, tenderness, and, of course, love.

A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle

USA Today

Today.com

Ms. Magazine

Good Housekeeping

Bustle

The Week

Goodreads

Bookriot

Pop Culturely

SheReads

Litreactor

Electric Lit

The Mary Sue

People Español

Zibby Mag

Debutiful

Her Campus

Best Books of March by Shondaland

Ms. Magazine

Popsugar

Bookriot

Debutiful

Powell's Book Blog

TIME 100 must-read book of 2023

Booklist Top 10 debut of 2023

Library Journal Best Pop Fiction of 2023

The Latinidad List Best Debut Novel of 2023

Chicago Public Library Favorite Book of 2023

Good Housekeeping Must-Read Book of 2023

Today.com Standout Book of 2023

Includes a Reading Group Guide.