Let's Talk About Lauren Fernandez

A character deep-dive and a call for your thoughts on her future.

Oye, sucia! Let’s talk about Lauren.

Yes, that Lauren.

Lauren Freakin’ Fernandez, y’all. The lead character from my debut smash hit of a novel, The Dirty Girls Social Club.

Red hair, porcelain skin, hurricane of a mouth. Half Cubana, half swamp-monster White Trash by her own proud admission. Born broke in a busted-up bayou trailer, bred on fried food and fight-or-flight, and somehow became a sharp-tongued Boston columnist with a passport, a condo, and a closet full of laundry she never quite managed to wash.

We met her when she was 28, the first to show up (early, obviously) to the Sucias’ annual reunion. (For the uninitiated, the “sucias” or Dirty Girls Social Club is a group of six Latinas who met as freshmen at Boston University and have been friends (more or less) ever since. Living in a converted schoolhouse in Jamaica Plain. Lying about speaking Spanish because how the fuck else is a “Latina” going to get a job in news in an America that has no idea who we really are beyond Hollywood stereotypes? Drinking too much. Dating a parade of men who were all magically allergic to honesty. Bulimic as hell. Gorgeous in photos but not in her own stupid head. A career success story, but an absolute trainwreck in her personal life.

Her cat, Fatso, hated her. Or maybe just reflected her feelings back at her like a furry little mirror. She never had her dry cleaning together. She always forgot to shave that one spot above the ankle. Her voicemail was always full. Her apartment always smelled faintly of vodka and barf and cinnamon gum.

At the time, she was engaged to Ed the Bigheaded Texican, a political speechwriter with a God complex and a not-that-impressive dick that thought enough of itself to refuse to stay monogamous. When she caught him cheating (surprise!) with a teenager (surprise!), she rebounded with Amaury—a Dominican drug dealer with cheekbones for days and the enticing potential to have exactly zero capacity to give a shit about her interior life and maybe even (if she were lucky) to murder her in her sleep.

Turned out Amaury was actually… kinda awesome?

Lauren thought she could save him. Then she thought maybe he could save her by making her more legit as a Latina stereotype. Spoiler: he couldn’t even save his own phone contacts, but we had to wait for book two to figure that shit out.

Speaking of which…then came Dirty Girls on Top. Four years later. The Sucias met up at a high-end resort in New Mexico. Lauren was 32. Tanned, toned, still kicking ass as a columnist but still drinking like it was cardio, the kind of running that might help you escape yourself if you went fast enough. That weekend, she broke something sacred.

She slept with Liz. Liz, as in Elizabeth Cruz. A fellow sucia.

Liz, the one lesbian in the crew. Liz, who’d loved Lauren since college. Liz, who dared to hope. But Lauren? She was blackout drunk and running on pain. What felt like possibility to Liz was just another hit-and-run for Lauren, and the fallout cracked the group in half.

By the end of that book, Lauren’s bulimia caught up to her. Esophageal damage. Hospitalization. Rehab. Finally. Maybe.

And now? Like NOW now? Today? Well, next week, when I start to post real-time new chapters from the sucias as they exist 22 years after we first met them, as they close in on age 50?

Now, Lauren’s 49.

And here’s the twist: she doesn’t remember any of it.

A head injury has wiped out the last twenty years. Lauren wakes up believing she’s still 28, still with Ed, still spinning in the same lonely orbit. She doesn’t know she dumped Ed, or that she caught Amaury cheating too, or that she had to go to rehab, three fucking times. That she finally got sober. Doesn’t know she fell in love—for real this time, with an actual sociopath who seemed so shy and normal she married his dumb ass. Doesn’t know she became a mother to a high-functioning autistic son. Divorced. That she died and came back from the dead a changed person. That she wrote a novel. Or two. Or twelve. That she alienated all of Hollywood right when she was about to catch her big break. That she decided to check out of the rat race completely and is now running spiritual retreats in Havana. Doesn’t know she clawed her way into a life she never thought she deserved.

But she did.

She built something beautiful.

And now she has to remember it. And how the fuck it happened.

Chapter by chapter, memory by memory, we’ll watch Lauren reassemble her life from the wreckage. It’s a resurrection story, Sucia-style.

And now I need you.

What else should Lauren remember? What kind of life did she build when we weren’t looking? Did she marry someone gentle and true—or did she finally stop needing a man to prove her worth? Is she thriving in the desert, in New Mexico, like me?
Or is she living loud in a city full of ghosts and grace?

Did she finally forgive her mama? Did she write that memoir? Does she still secretly hate that now-dead cat?

You tell me.

Lauren has always been the character closest to me. Maybe she still is. And if I can write her into healing, maybe I can write myself there too.

Drop your thoughts in the comments. Let’s bring her back together.

She’s not just mine anymore.

She’s ours.

—Alisa

👀 Want more Lauren? Come get it.

I’m writing the Dirty Girls Social Club 2025 Reboot in real time—a chapter a day, raw and unfiltered, as the story unfolds. This isn’t some polished, two-years-later release. You’re reading it as I write it, alongside me, in the messy, magical moment of creation.

But here’s the deal:
It’s only available to paid subscribers.

Just $6 a month gets you full access to:

• Every chapter, delivered daily

• Livestream Q&As and hangouts

• Behind-the-scenes character notes and worldbuilding

• Exclusive community chats with fellow Sucias

• The chance to vote on major plot points and twists (yes, you’re in the writer’s room now)

If you’ve ever wanted to be part of the process—not just the audience—this is your chance.

So if Lauren’s story is calling you back, or if you’ve always wanted to peek behind the scenes as a novel comes to life, subscribe now and join the Sucia Squad.

Because the story doesn’t write itself.

I write it with you.