Another day and another book from my list of 50 Books Every Woman Should Read Before She Turns 40. This one was In the Time of the Butterflies (1994) by Julia Alvarez. I had heard of this novel before and was interested in reading it. It is a fictionalized version of the true story of four sisters in the Dominican Republic, three of whom were killed by the order of the brutal dictator, Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo came into power with a military coup, and he managed to stay […]
Proto 90s/Ur-text
This book is one of those books that wrote the book on how to write books. That is, early 90s hybrid culture immigrant narrative. And this one is not exactly the one that did it first and did it best, but it is a very compelling book with alive characters that are funny and interesting. But I also think this book has the issue that a lot of these books have which is you can feel the marketing of the book at times in the […]
It made me want to go guava picking
3.5 stars Reading How the García Girls Lost Their Accents made me really want to re-read The House on Mango Street. Not because I remember really liking it when I read it in school, but because I think I have a little bit more maturity to appreciate it now, and because it’s also a book composed of vignettes that represents a particular Latina immigrant experience. But I don’t remember it very well, so I am curious why one gets picked to be read in schools, […]
An interesting young adult historical novel
Eleven and a half years ago, I read a book that would (unbeknownst to me) awaken in me a craving for contemporary fiction. I had been raised on a steady diet of 18th and 19th century classic novels and had no idea that any other kind of novel existed, beyond the John Grisham-esque paperbacks that my high school friends liked to read. But when I took Much Ado About English, my introduction-to-the-major course at my beloved liberal arts college, I found a new love, though […]