Crying in the Bathroom

summer leading up to my senior year studying abroad in the city of Oaxaca (on a big, fat student loan), so living at home for my last year of college began to feel absurd. I had wandered across Mexico alone, nursing a broken heart after my boyfriend of two years told me he didn't love me anymore and quickly replaced me with a homely white girl. For weeks, I partied with the rich Mexican friends I'd met while sobbing on the beach one afternoon. I drank so much mezcal that I gave myself pancreatitis and had to be hospitalized. I had lived. Now I'd suddenly be informing my parents of my whereabouts? And at twenty-one? Naw.

So early in the year, I packed my things and moved in with a friend who lived in an apartment across the street from our old high school, about a mile away. My parents were livid. Old-school Mexicans, they considered my leaving home simply because I felt like doing so a violation of my role as daughter. In their eyes, I was both ungrateful and disrespectful, which wasn't entirely untrue, but not because I was moving out. Leaving home at this age, and unmarried, was not something that any women in my family had ever done. It was a stunning and unprecedented affront. But that didn't stop me.

I paid two hundred dollars a month to rent my friend's spare bedroom, and that was half the rent. Her father owned the building, which, I imagine, is why it was so unbelievably cheap. That and the fact that the place was, unfortunately, a dump, with yellowed walls and faded linoleum floors in the kitchen.

I had outrun the roaches of my childhood only to be greeted by them once again-It's nice to see you, Erika. We missed you. The kitchen had a clinical yet sordid quality that suggested pain and desperation. Everyone looked sad and gaunt under its fluorescent light. A friend described it as "a place where people would shoot up heroin or some shit." My bedroom wasn't much of an improvement. For some mysterious reason, there was a

You ll yearn for a sequel before you ve even turned the last page." --LA Times

The memoir that doesn t wind its way toward a harsh revelation or the summiting of a mountain, the memoir that merely considers a life, is rare Crying in the Bathroom [is] an account of childhood depression, and falling in love with comedy, a 'fraught' relationship with her grandmother, suffering through a bad marketing job in the Sears Tower, risking the uneasy life of a writer. It s also a lesson in nurturing a clear voice. --Chicago Tribune

"Sánchez is an honest, vulnerable writer who doesn t hold any of her truths back from LGBT rights to women s issues, from sex to love."--HipLatina

"Bestselling author Erika L. Sánchez has written this unique yet relatable memoir in essays that will have you crying from laughter and heartbreak. Keep the tissues nearby!" --Ms. Magazine's "July 2022 Reads for the Rest of Us"

"With animated, often hilarious, vignettes from a multicultural youth spent yearning for the solitude necessary for writing, Crying in the Bathroom finds the author immensely grateful for a splendid study of her own and the sacrifices her hardworking parents made so their daughter could pursue her literary dreams and lead a life of the mind."--Shelf Awarness

To make your readers crack up while also discussing weighty topics like sexism, racism, and depression is no easy task, but it s one Erika L. Sánchez is well equipped for she has written a memoir/essay collection that [is] poignant and bold. --LitHub

Her ability to relate to readers on a personal, intellectual, and cultural levels is one of the book s greatest achievements An engrossing, accessible, heart-opening recollection of a fascinating life.  --Booklist

"Her writing shines with a deep humility wrought from the hard-won nature of her personal peace. The result is another satisfying addition to Sánchez's deeply moving body of works."--Publishers Weekly

A famous Latino comic told me quoting either Chaplin or Cantinflas or both that if you tell a story that makes people laugh, that s great, but if you make them laugh and cry, that s genius.  Erika Sánchez tells her tale with a deluge of unidentifiable feelings that came out through my eyes.   It s only after you ve laughed that you understand the heartbreak beneath the laughter.  I relished especially the stories she shares about being a wanderer savoring her solitude, a rare gift for a woman, but absolutely essential for any writer. --Sandra Cisneros, New York Times bestselling author of The House on Mango Street

Erika s writing grabs a hold and won t let go. She s equal parts pee-your-pants hilarity and break your heart poignancy- like the perfect brunch date you never want to end!"--America Ferrera, Emmy award-winning actress in Ugly Betty
 
"CRYING IN THE BATHROOM is deeply personal, in the best sense -- honest, cutting, hilarious, revelatory. These essays strike deep chords for any of us who came of age in the nineties, or really for anyone who came of age at all." --Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer finalist for The Great Believers
 
After reading, Crying in the Bathroom, Erika L. Sánchez has undoubtedly cemented herself as not just one of my favorite writers, but also as my best friend... in my mind. Because why wouldn t I want to be close to someone so intentional, so funny, so proven, and most importantly, so self-aware they could tell a story about their life in a way that makes me take inventory of my own? To put it simply, which I'm not sure is actually possible, this is a whoopie cushion, a gut punch, and an alarm clock of a book. --Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author of Look Both Ways: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks