Fake Piñata
The debut collection of poetry
by Ashleah Gonzales
Rose Books #003
May 21, 2024
Cover design by Sarah Schulte
Interior design by Adam Robinson
About the Book
In this debut collection, Ashleah Gonzales cuts open and examines the pieces of a life as they fall. Hands full of rotten oranges, promises to ancestors, lost secrets, empty days in Paris—they begin to add up to “an eternity that’s entirely mine.” These poems sting with tenderness, intimacy, and a longing to find a place that finally feels like home.
About the Author
Ashleah Gonzales is an American writer living in Paris. This is her first book.
Praise for Fake Piñata
“Ashleah Gonzales' lyrical and often playful poems will take readers in until they've completed reading the book. The only thing to do is read it again. These poems, often made of meditations, quips and insights, show the mind in process via syntax and imagery that keeps these poems close to the heart. Fake Piñata adds an exciting new voice to the contemporary poetry conversation.”
—Ben Fama, author of If I Close My Eyes
How to Purchase Fake Piñata
The first paperback printing is available via preorder on Rose Books and Asterism Books——both ship worldwide.
The signed and limited edition clothbound hardcover is only available via Rose Books.
Bookstores and libraries interested in stocking Fake Piñata, please visit Asterism Books for wholesale rates.
NYC Book Launch Event
May 21, 2024:
Ashleah Gonzales in conversation with Alexandra Tanner
McNally Jackson Seaport, 4 Fulton Street, New York
Press for Fake Piñata
Coveteur: Ashleah Gonzales is Writing It Down
“Gonzales’s curiosities circle a pressing question: What is a home?”
Interview Mag: Ashleah Gonzales Made Kendall Jenner a
Literary It-Girl. Now, She’s a Published Poet.
“Time will tell if Fake Piñata’s primary colored cover makes it into Page Six.”
Nylon: 32 Books We’re Excited About in 2024
“Before inking a book deal, Ashleah Gonzales was known as a famous reader. […] Now, she’s set to publish her debut collection of poetry on fellow literary It Girl Chelsea Hodson’s small press.”
Nylon: Ashleah Gonzales Went From Giving Kendall Jenner Book Recs to Writing Her Own
“What the photos didn’t show was that the 37-year-old from Phoenix, Arizona, was quietly working on a manuscript of her own, crafting poetry in her iPhone while on the go.”
Nylon: May 2024’s Must-Read Book Releases
“‘I feel like a fake piñata myself,’ she says in NYLON’s Spring/Summer 2024 issue. ‘When you open the book, you’re cracking open a piñata and finding all of these separate pieces of me that are all very different, but all belong to the same thing.’”
Publishers Weekly: Summer Reads 2024
“This book is at the center of a complicated confluence of several different sorts of lit kid cool. Color me painfully curious.”
W Magazine: The Best, Most Talked-About Books of 2024 (So Far)
“Celebrity manager Ashleah Gonzales first became known for her great taste in books. […] Now, Gonzales has her first collection of poems on the way, via Chelsea Hodson’s small but trendy press.”
Write or Die: Ashleah Gonzales: On Inspirations from Youth, Romanticizing the Self, and Cool Girl Lit in Her Debut Poetry Collection, ‘Fake Piñata’
“Fake Piñata lives in the space between desolation and isolation. It is an ode to sadness, to unoccupied time, to rejection and leaving and being left and to finding hope in the sky, in the ocean, in watching ducks in the water, of wading in the quicksand of memories. It is the ‘x’ you make on your skin with your own nail to relieve an itch.”