Recuerda aquella vez

About Recuerda aquella vez

Recuerda aquella vez is the Spanish-language edition of Adam Silvera's debut novel, published in the United States as More Happy Than Not. The Spanish edition was published by Urano in 2017 and brings Silvera's story to Spanish-speaking readers. The publication of this edition reflects both the novel's widespread appeal and the recognition that LGBTQ+ young adult literature has as significant an audience among Spanish speakers as any other community.

The novel follows Aaron Soto, a sixteen-year-old living in the Bronx with his mother and older brother in the months after his father's suicide. Aaron has been trying to find his way back to happiness through his girlfriend Genevieve, his neighborhood friends, and his own stubborn optimism. When Thomas moves into the neighborhood, Aaron finds himself experiencing feelings he doesn't have easy language for — and that the world around him has given him every reason to push down.

The Story and Its Translation

Set in the near future, where the Leteo Institute offers a controversial memory-alteration procedure, More Happy Than Not — and by extension Recuerda aquella vez — uses speculative technology to examine the very real pressure that LGBTQ+ young people face to suppress or change who they are. The Leteo procedure is accessible to those who can afford a payment plan toward it, and Aaron's community is one where money is genuinely scarce, which gives the novel's central choice an economic dimension alongside its psychological one.

Publishing this story in Spanish makes it available to readers in communities where the specific pressures the novel examines — family expectation, religious tradition, the sense that there is no space for your identity in the world you actually live in — are often felt with particular intensity. The act of translation is, in this context, an act of inclusion.

Why It Has Been Challenged

Recuerda aquella vez has been removed from North East Independent School District in Texas. The challenge, like those applied to the English-language edition, cites the novel's LGBTQ+ content. The book, in either language, is a story about a young man learning who he is and what it costs to be taught that who he is is unacceptable.

The banning of the Spanish-language edition specifically — rather than just the English edition — is notable. It suggests that the objection is not merely to a particular book but to the ideas it contains being accessible to any reader. Spanish-speaking students in Texas and elsewhere are entitled to the same access to literature in their language that English-speaking students have, and the removal of this edition is a denial of that access.