Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA by Julia Alvarez

[afterannabel.livejournal.com]

3) Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA by Julia Alvarez

I have mixed feelings about this book. My biggest complaint was that I was often frustrated by Alvarez's use of Spanish words and idioms, of which she rarely provided translation. I took Spanish on and off in high school and college, and some words' meanings are intuitive (familia) or obvious from the context, so that was helpful. But it made me stumble many times throughout the book. I really liked the fact that Alvarez dug deeper and explored how young Latina women in America struggle with incorporating both cultures into their lives in meaningful ways, without compromising themselves.

Comments

[afterannabel.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I've not read any Gene Wolfe but I think now I want to try.

[alias_sqbr]

He's pretty awesome. My favourite thus far is "The Book of the New Sun" (a fantasy series in four parts). Though, yes, you really don't ever fully know what all the events or words mean. One of the cool things is that it's set in a post-technological far-future so you'll have scenes where the main character describes something using his vocabulary and concepts, and it's strange and interesting, and then you go "Oh wait! That's a picture of a guy in a space-suit on the moon!" or whatever and it's a whole different skew on the situation. Apparently the book is full of stuff like that but most of it went over my head :)