Winner of the 2025 International Impact Book Award for Contemporary Fiction.

Some families pass down land. Others pass down silence.

For three generations, the men in the Martínez family have learned that strength means endurance, not expression. From the cracked soil of Michoacán to the fields of Central California, they’ve survived by holding their stories tight, their pride tighter, and their pain in the deepest places they don’t name.

Alejandro grows up believing this is the only way to be a man until the pressure inside him finally ruptures into the one thing his family fears most: truth. As father and son collide, and old wounds rise from the spaces no one talks about, the Martínez men are forced to face the question they’ve avoided for decades:

How do you break a cycle that raised you?

Raw, intimate, and deeply human, Mijo: We Bend, Not Break follows a family caught between tradition and transformation, silence and connection, survival and healing. With the insight of a therapist and the heart of a storyteller, Francisco Castillo captures the emotional weight many men carry but rarely speak aloud.

This is a novel for anyone who grew up being “the strong one,” anyone shaped by generational expectations, and anyone trying to become something more than what they inherited.

A story that cuts deep.
A story that stays.
A story about the courage it takes to bend, so you don’t break.