Written in a breathless, breakneck speed, El Verbo J narrates the story of a trans woman during the wartime El Salvador. Once I realized what was happening in the book, I practically foresaw with terror and heartache the inevitable plotline: you get story of the boy bullied for his queerness, forced to hide and flee from el ejército, as well as the story of sex trafficking during migration and suffering the AIDS crisis in one body. The magnificent and shattering work of El Verbo J is to remind us that queer people existed during these times as well. While most wartime narratives are derived from the stories of masculinist guerrilleros a la Che Guevara and Roque Dalton or in self-sacrificing parents, El Verbo J zeroes in on queer stories submerged within the howls of others, whose stories dominated more historically. The story is told with a swift almost stream of thought narrative that whiplashes you, dropping you into scenarios without context only to unravel and explain later. Central American scholars talked up this book to me a lot before I got to it (via LibroFM :D) and it deserves all its praise and more. 5/5