Ana of California
reviewdate:
Jun 13 2015
isn:
978-0-14-312649-2
Tagged with Latino-American
Truth About Alice, the
reviewdate:
Feb 16 2015
isn:
9781596439108
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Cup of Water Under My Bed, a
Hernández recounts childhood, coming-of-age, coming out, and coming to terms with her family. Like other child-of-immigrants stories, this one is about a child set up to leave her family behind.
reviewdate:
Jan 18 2015
isn:
978-0-8070-1448-6
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Witches of East End
I put this book on hold at NYPL after watching the first episode of the TV series. I only made it through one and a half more installments of the show, but when my copy of the book became available, I figured I'd see how it compared. It's better, but not great. Some major plot points are surprisingly different.
reviewdate:
Nov 12 2013
isn:
978-1-4013-2390-5
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Shortest Day 2013, the
If you've been paying any attention at all, you know that I'm a huge Celia Perez fan. In fact I reviewed last year's issue of The Shortest Day here, most glowingly.
reviewdate:
Jun 2 2013
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What Night Brings
Marci Cruz has an abusive father, a mother who is blinded by love for her husband, and wants to be a boy so she can love girls. The story can be hard to read sometimes because Eddie Cruz really is a champion cabrón (there's a ton of Spanish in the book), but seeing 11-year-old Marci and her seven-year-old sister Corin fight back is satisfying.
reviewdate:
May 11 2013
isn:
978-188068494-8
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Wedding in Haiti: the Story of a Friendship, a
I have long enjoyed Julia Alvarez's reality inspired political fiction, I gobble up autobiographies, and because of my spouse's work with two nonprofits there, I have an interest in Haiti, so of course her Haiti memoir was appealing to me. Unfortunately...
Quotations:
"We ride into the downtown area [of Port-au-Prince], full of ambivalence. To watch or not to watch. What is the respectful way to move through these scenes of devastation? We came to see, and according to Junior, Haiti needs to be seen. But something feels unsavory about visiting sites where people have suffered and are still suffering. You tell yourself you are here in solidarity. But at the end of the day, you add it up, and you still feel ashamed--at least I do. You haven't improved a damn thing. Natural disaster tourism--that's what it feels like."
reviewdate:
Apr 24 2013
isn:
978-1-61620-274-3
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When the Stars Go Blue
Soledad is an 18-year-old Cuban-American dancer from Miami making plans to go to NYC and audition for ballet companies when she's presented with the opportunity to go pro with a drum and bugle corps. (Right? But it sounds like a really cool thing, and a great way to spend the summer after graduating from high school, not to mention with the hottie who suggested her for the gig.)
reviewdate:
Apr 5 2013
isn:
978-0-312-65004-9
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Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines
This is another book I wished I'd enjoyed more, as I did Griest's previous memoir Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana. After having explored cultures foreign to her own, Griest decides to spend a year in Mexico, examining the roots of half of her bloodline. The parts where she explores her Mexican and mixed race identities are compelling, but the reportage in most of the book is less so, at least for me.
reviewdate:
Jan 6 2013
isn:
978-1-4615-4017-5
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Something to Declare
Although I love Alvarez's novels, I found her book of essays to be a little meh. In fact, I stopped just before the halfway point. It might be zines' fault. I've read a lot of similar themed essays (about feeling half in one world and half in another, due to immigrant status, mixed race identity or the loss of one's native language) in dozens (hundreds?) of zines.
reviewdate:
Dec 27 2012
isn:
0-452-28067-2