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Women's Fiction
The Dirty Girls Social Club

The Dirty Girls Social Club

List Price: $24.95
Your Price: $24.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Well, I just flat-out loved it
Review: Yeah, it's not deep, it's not great literature, but no one is pretending it is. It's sharp, sassy, irreverent, funny, and just made for women to enjoy like tortilla chips with salsa and a cold Dos Equis straight out of the bottle.
This debut novel by a skilled and experienced writer with Attitude with a capital A delivers on its promise. Six friends since college days meet twice a year to catch up on all of each other's dirt, and there's a lot of dirt being dished around.
Read it and enjoy it. Don't expect to be educated or transformed; just expect to be wildly entertained.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not exactly a 100% latina book
Review: The book is ok, it exemplifies the lives of many latina women in the US and how they interact with each other due to their different scenarios...but let me ask something, who translated this book????? I am from Puerto Rico, one of my closest friends is from Venezuela, my best friend is from Cuba and my boyfriend's best friend is from Colombia....and let me tell you, all the characters talk as if they were from Spain or some Spanish speaking country I apparently have not heard of...Now, I'm not saying that the book is bad, its good in a way that it demonstrates how all these women have held together and been through a lot of ordeals and always stuck together through thick and thin, but the translators did an AWFUL job on this one...It's a book that its easy to read, but does not show how different all these women are culturally...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good read
Review: I am very impressed with this book. Great characters. Good story and ending.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent debut - well worth its hype
Review: THE DIRTY GIRLS SOCIAL CLUB is a juicy, profound, well-written, and emotionally riveting novel about six professional Latina girlfriends who are all going through various stages of life. From Rebecca, a magazine owner who is trapped in a marriage she cannot stand, to Elizabeth, the attractive television anchor who has a secret that threatens her career, the sucias (dirty girls) all have hurdles to jump, decisions to make, new lessons to learn.

When the manuscript was on submission, this book caused a bidding frenzy and after reading, it's easy to understand why. The Dirty Girls Social Club is destined to earn a lot of attention. It's culturally rich, yet relatable as it deals with the universal themes of women, friendship, family, work, and relationship issues. The content is heavy on the Spanish, but it's a very sophisticated novel, textured, detailed, and is eye-opening in many ways in terms of exposing cultural stereotypes uncommonly known.

Some scenes caused the hair to rise on my neck and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. Fantastic plot twists, great description that places the reader in the scene (whether you're in Boston, LA, or Rome), there are dozens of compelling scenes, and so many elements of life and love which ring with honesty regardless of your ethnicity.

This is the book to get, the book to read, the book that will cause tongues to wag from the East Coast, to the West Coast and beyond. It's a kicker of a novel, one of those types where the more you read, the better it gets, and the warmer you feel. Women all over will be cheering for The Dirty Girls Social Club.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: blah
Review: I did not fall in love with the characters. Rather, I would like to kill every one of them. I bought this book thinking it would be a fun read. I ended up wanting to get my money back.

This book is full of pompous, money-grabbing women whose idea of a good life is to find a rich boyfriend/husband. A life-altering, earth-shattering crisis arises when one of them (...) must decide whether or not to choose a "poor" man.

Between Usnavys who flaunts her riches to stuck-up (...) Rebecca, and Amber/Cuicatl who is reminiscent of the Christian evangelists, this book merely goes through the motions of being "diverse" in its portrayal of Latinas.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Relatable to all women
Review: I found the book extremely entertaining and very relatable. While I am not Latina, I could see myself and my close group of friends mirrored in the charatures. I think we all have a "Lauren" or a "Rebecca" that we know. As for people who feel that Latino men are not represented well, stupid men are found in all races. This book has a similar flavor (but milder) as "Sex and the City". I can't wait for the author's next book

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Great New Voice...
Review: Valdez-Rodriguez is a great new writer. As a Hispanic who reads, writes and thinks in English, I appreciate her style, content and ability to break the rules.

The Dirty Girls Social Club is a funny novel that touches our realities in a smooth easy to read way. I enjoyed her treatment of each character, her ability to weave social situations, and her humor. Unlike Hispanic literature from native Spanish speakers, or translated works, Valdez-Rodriguez is a writer for us here in the US - focused on the relevance of our lives instead of something removed and far away.

Read the book and keep an eye on her (hopefully) future works.

Joel Font

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Ridiculous stereotypical trash
Review: I cannot believe that St. Martin's actually shelled out as much money as they did for this trivial 'work'. Maybe one day, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez will be a good author, but this offering doesn't show that.
The characters in this book, especially Usnavys, despite Valdes-Rodriguez's efforts, feed into every stereotype Americans have of Latin-American women. Her obsession with labels, her need for a propertied and rich man, all sound like the type of money-grubbing, bling-bling wearing hoochie mama that people have labeled us as.
I didn't pick this book up looking for an intellectual read at all--on the contrary, I was looking for something light and fun to unwind after finals last semester. What I got was a tightening in my gut thinking that this book has a four-star rating on Amazon while it's perpetuating every negative thing that people have to say about Latinas.
The writing itself also drove me bonkers. Valdes-Rodriguez has a choppy style that does this already clunking plot a huge disservice.
I'll never understand what drove the bidding war that resulted in the publication of this book, but I can do one thing to make myself feel better for falling for the hype...I can get my money back. I'd stay far, far away from this wanna-be Sandra Cisneros if I were you.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not very dirty...
Review: Which, for everyone out there who is tierd of a decent storyline bogged down with silly, meaningless sex and smut, is a VERY good thing. This book tells the tale of the lives of a close group of women who are struggling to discover who they are and what they really want from their lives as they also contend with their identities as Latina women.
On the whole I enjoyed the story, it was humorous in some places and the writing was very smooth. I got through this one in a few days and I must say that it was more serious than I expected, and this is why, in my opinion, it is not genuine chick-lit. It is a few steps above that.
However, this seriousness is also why it gets four stars and not five. As a Latina (I actually call myself Hispanic), parts of this book just hit too close to home for me to REALLY enjoy it. I pressed on because I did like the story, but a book like this can make you feel uncomfortable if you can relate to the frustration these women feel when it comes to ignorant stereotyping of Latina women and Hispanic, Mexican, Spanish, WHATEVER roots. The ignorance of some people in this world is seriously jaw dropping to me, and so seeing this true ignorance these (fictional but very real) women deal must deal with, particularly in their careers, was just really true and really frustrating.
Also, I can see why some people would have a problem with this book because it DOES play upon some stereotypes itself. For instance, this book does not portray Hispanic, etc. men in a very flattering light. Nor does it seem to have much patience with first generation immigrants. None of this really offended me because personally, I think they are pretty true.
But ANYWAY, do not read this book if you are Hispanic, etc. and are looking for a beach read. Because this book might hit too close to home (like it did for me) and I guarantee your blood pressure will rise and for reasons of your own you might even start hyperventilating.
Like I said, great story, great writing, but too close to home for comfort.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great reading of a cute book
Review: My only complaint with the author's reading of her book is that it had to be abridged. The abridged version was enjoyable (can a CD be a 'page-turner?'), but it was over too soon! The author did a great job of differentiating voices for characters, without going over the line into the ridiculous.


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