The following edition of the text was used in the creation of this study guide: de la Cerda, Dahlia. Reservoir Bitches. Scribe, 2024. Kindle AZW file.

In "Parsley and Coca Cola", Diana, a young Mexican woman, discovers she is pregnant after a one-night stand. Unable to access an abortion clinic due to distance and cost, she researches home abortion methods. After failing to obtain misoprostol from several pharmacies, she finds one offering it at a discounted price. She takes the pills alone at home and experiences a graphic miscarriage.

In "Yuliana", Yuliana, the daughter of a powerful drug lord, grows up under heavy security and is sent to a private school where she is bullied for being low class. She befriends Regina, who later asks to be introduced to a boyfriend in the drug trade. The man Regina dates kills her. Yuliana’s father and boyfriend refuse to retaliate due to the man’s connections. Yuliana’s father promotes her within the family business and assigns her a bodyguard, La China, who kills the man in secret, staging it as a cartel hit.

In "God Forgive Us", three elderly sisters living with their mother in a poor, unrecognized barrio in Mexico mistake an intruder for a young man with a machete and beat them to death. They later discover it was a young woman. Police release them without charges, ruling it self-defense. The narrator wonders if God will forgive them.

In "Constanza", Constanza, sister of Regina, believes Regina died by suicide. After a sex tape scandal as a teen, Constanza is sent to Spain, where she marries Fernando, a future presidential candidate. Back in Mexico, a journalist threatens to release the tape. Constanza asks Yuliana for help, offering political favors. Yuliana agrees, asking if the journalist should be killed or just shaken up. Constanza replies that she wants him dead.

"God Didn’t Come Through" is narrated by the young woman killed in "God Forgive Us." She recalls poverty, dressing as a boy, and robbing people to support her family. Initially targeting only wealthy men, she later plans to rob the elderly sisters, believing they had money.

In "La China", La China, once imprisoned for arranging her abusive ex-husband’s murder, is recruited by cartel leader El Comandante. She trains, rises through the ranks, and supports her daughter and mother with her earnings. Assigned as Yuliana’s bodyguard, she adopts a new look to appear as her friend. When asked to avenge Regina’s death, La China disguises herself, seduces the killer, murders and dismembers him, and stages the scene to implicate a rival cartel.

In "The Rose of Sharon", an unnamed woman, married off at 15 to an abusive man, believes God answered her prayers when he chokes to death while drunk. She develops a sexual obsession with a priest and begins hearing voices. Convinced God demands a blood sacrifice, she murders her son.

In "Regina", Regina recounts her friendship with Yuliana, who helps her gain social media clout and introduces her to Jesus, a man in the drug trade. Jesus is initially kind but becomes violently abusive. Despite this, Regina’s father encourages her to stay with Jesus. The abuse escalates until Jesus kills her while she is on the phone with Yuliana, who pleads with her father to intervene.

In "Mariposa de Barrio", Stefi, a teen mother, is heartbroken after her boyfriend Yandel leaves her. She wins a ticket to a concert by a trans woman performing Jenni Rivera covers. After enjoying the show, she cries on the way home. A cab driver tells her Jenni wouldn’t want her to cry over a man. Stefi agrees and throws away a necklace Yandel gave her.

In "The Smile", a black woman identified only as La Negra leaves her coastal hometown for Juarez, where she is raped and murdered after being left alone on a bus. In death, she meets El Charro Negro and is reborn as an immortal being who drinks blood, avoids sunlight, and cannot enter homes uninvited. She returns to Juarez, boards the same bus, and confronts her killers, now terrified of her undead form.

In "Sequins", Julia, a trans woman, recalls being punished as a child for her gender expression. As an adult sex worker, she is assaulted and murdered by men in a car. Her spirit is upset by media misgendering her. In the afterlife, she is welcomed by trans women and activists of the past.

In "Playing With Fire", the narrator, trained as a witch by her aunt Hortensia, becomes a popular bruja. When new neighbor Teresa’s dogs repeatedly defecate in her yard, the narrator tries and fails to curse her. She summons the devil, who tells her to steal a candle from Teresa. Inside Teresa’s house, she realizes Teresa is also a witch. Instead of harming her, she asks the devil to build a wall between their homes.

In "La Huesera", in a letter to her murdered best friend Claudia, the narrator reflects on their friendship and her struggle with mental health after Claudia’s disappearance and death. She recalls the night Claudia went home alone and went missing, later learning about femicide in Mexico. Deeply affected, she dedicates herself to honoring murdered women’s memories by sharing their stories, inspired by the myth of La Huesera, who brings bones back to life.