The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Hernández, Daisy. The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease. Tin House, 2021.

Daisy Hernández's The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease is a work of nonfiction. The text is written from Hernández's first person point of view, employs the past and present tenses, and marries narrative and journalistic elements.

When Hernández was six, she learned that her mother's sister, Tía Dora, had Chagas. Years later, she would learn that Chagas was also called the kissing bug disease. Because she knew nothing about the illness as a child, Hernández did not fear for her aunt's life. Instead, she focused her energies on making her aunt love her.

Tía Dora's illness continued to worsen over the following years. Because her family was afraid for her health, Hernández's mother invited her to move from Colombia to Union City, New Jersey to live with her family. Over the years following Tía Dora's relocation to New Jersey, tensions began to emerge between her and Hernández. Hernández was boyish, outspoken, and hungry for knowledge and activity. Tía Dora thought her niece's behavior was inappropriate for a girl, and constantly pushed Hernández to be more ladylike.

Meanwhile, Tía Dora's health continued to wane. Her family learned that she had been bitten by a kissing bug, an insect that carried the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. The parasite was known to attack and feed off of its victims' vital organs. Tía Dora's parasite was eating away at her colon.

Although Hernández and her family knew that Tía Dora had been sick for years, none of them believed she would die. Therefore, when she was hospitalized when Hernández was a young woman, Hernández was convinced her aunt would survive. After a series of heart attacks, Tía Dora passed away.

In the wake of her aunt's death, Hernández felt overcome by despair and sorrow. Yet she refused to believe that she was grieving her aunt. After decades of disagreement and animosity, Hernández told herself she had nothing and no one to mourn. To hide from her emotional confusion, she threw herself into a lengthy project researching the kissing bug, the kissing bug disease, and the T. cruzi parasite.

Over the course of her research, Hernández discovered more and more about the bug, parasite, and disease that ended her aunt's life. Her research took her all over the United States and Latin America. She not only got to study the insect and the parasite it hosted, but was able to meet a litany of other individuals and families who had been affected by the once mysterious illness. The more she learned about the kissing bug disease, the more confused Hernández became about the lack of awareness and knowledge concerning the illness in America. Further research revealed more troubling inequalities in the American healthcare system.

At the end of her research project, Hernández traveled back to Colombia to see her extended family. Talking to her cousin's helped her to reconcile with Tía Dora's death and to move past her grief and sorrow. Years later, she continues to hold on to her aunt's dictionaries and story in order to preserve her memory.