My Train Leaves at Three: A Novel by Natalie Guerrero
Published: 2025
Genre: Fiction
My Rating: 4/5
When I Read It: September 2025
Whether it's right or wrong, when a man tells me my worth, I believe him.
My Review
My Train Leaves at 3 is as New York as New York can be. The main character is a Dominican and Puerto Rican woman living with her mom in Washington Heights. Like many New Yorkers of the past and many to come, she aspires to sing on Broadway. The book demonstrates how she's healing after her older sister's death, living with her controlling mom, and navigating dreams that may never come to fruition.
I know too well what it's like to try your best to manage grief while also trying to make your dreams come true, wondering when and if you need to just give up. This book was brutally honest, and for the most part, I enjoyed the storyline. I especially appreciated how flawed the protagonist is — she's a mess! And I love when we all women to be messes (I'm still learning how to allow that of myself).
I will say I found the writing left something to be desired, but for a debut novel, I think this was a great read. There were quite a few times I couldn't put it down, and I'm pretty sure I knocked out the second half in one Saturday afternoon.
Spoiler: although the book reads quite rough sometimes, it was really beautiful watching the main character create her happy ending. I finished the book feeling really proud of her.
Plot Summary
After her sister Nena’s sudden death, Xiomara, an Afro-Latina singer and actress born and raised in Washington Heights, is numb. With her sister gone, Xiomara, painfully close to thirty, is living in a tiny apartment with her ultra-Catholic Puerto Rican mother, and having the same shitty sex with the same shitty men that she’s been entertaining for years. Behind on rent despite two minimum-wage jobs, one of which involves singing show tunes while serving pancakes to tourists at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, Xiomara is bitingly cynical, especially in her grief, and barely treading water.
But when a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity falls into her lap—the chance to audition for Manny Santos, the most charismatic director of the moment—Xiomara sees a second chance to pursue the dream she thought she’d lost. Meanwhile, something about Santi, a new co-worker at the print shop where she spends half of her days photocopying other performers’ headshots, starts to tug at the threads of her apathy. Nothing is simple, and soon Xiomara finds herself interacting with the ugliest sides of the industry and the powerful men who control it. Sometimes the closer you are to your dreams, the further away you become from yourself, and as Xiomara grapples with this hard truth, she is forced to ask herself if she has what it takes to build a new shiny life without losing the truth of her old one.
With hopeful spirit and unapologetic energy, My Train Leaves at Three is a coming-of-age story about the balancing act between moving on and moving forward.