How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Plume Contemporary Fiction)

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Summary: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Review: I enjoyed reading this book. I liked the challenge it gave me. This was a book from a different culture and it was also written in a different way. The book did not follow in chronological order, instead it went backwards. This made the book confusing and interesting. The book was full of symbolism. I usually do not read into the symbolism but in this book it was clear to me that somthing stood for something else. I was not always sure what it would stand for, but I knew it was something. I also liked the way that the book was broken up. There was a chapter for each girl and it helped develop thier character. This book took place in the Domenicain Republic and the United States. This helped me get a sense of another country and their culture, but I did not get confused because they were also talking about the United States. I could relate with the character Yolanda. She wanted to stay true to her roots but also become an American she was divided in who she wanted to be. I am also that way with my heritage. I enjoyed reading about her. I really enjoyed this book because it was from a woman's point of view, it gave me a chance to see a different culture, and it did it all in a way that I did not get confused and I enjoyed it.

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Summary: Beautiful book that transcends differences between people
Review: I first read one of the short stories in this book, "Daughter of Invention," in an anthology called GROWING UP LATINO. I found the short story so humorous, touching and sensitive I wanted to read the book that it originally came from.

What I admire about Julia Alvarez is her subtlety as a writer. I found myself chuckling to myself throughout the book, as well as learning more about her experience as a Dominicana told through the eyes of the four fictionalized daughters and the parents who raised them in a time of great political unrest. This was during the time of Trujillo, when their father got in trouble politically for attempting to overthrow his dictatorship. Hence, the reason for their exile to the Bronx, and the circular visits taken by the daughters returning from their schools in the U.S. back to the Dominican Republic.

What I admire about this story (or series of short stories) that discuss and illustrate the challenge of assimilation, racism and identity, is that Julia Alvarez's characters are identifiable with anyone who had has to immigrate and assimilate to a new set of social expectations and assume a bicultural/biracial identity. I think specifically of all the different Latinos from all corners who immigrated here, fleeing social and political unrest, and other groups of people of color who came to this country seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

I am also a great fan of Sandra Cisneros, the lively and biting Chicana writer based in Texas. I have to say that to compare Alvarez's work to Cisneros is impossible because the styles are so different. But, in all honesty, I found Alvarez less hard-edged and more accessible. I highly reccomend this novel as an introduction to a wonderful, vibrant and insightful Latina writer. I want to thank Julia Alvarez for sharing the experience of assimilation and adversity with us, her humble readers.

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Summary: It's worth your time
Review: I read, "How the Garcia Girls lost their accents" for my " Women of Latin America" class. This book was very interesting. This book is nothing like anything that I have read before, but I was still able to gain something from reading it. This is a wonderful story of how the Garcia de la Torre girls acclimate themselves to a new way of life when they are abruptly uprooted from their home. The United States and its culture are difficult for the girls to understand. The book takes us in to their lives and tells of the trials and tribulations of starting over. The best thing about this book is how the author is able to write the girls so accurately. I have two sisters, and I felt as if the things that the Garcia girls did were things that I can remember, or picture my sisters and I doing. The book is very easy reading and it is worth your time.

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Summary: The Garcia Girls
Review: This book was very well written. It was neat to experience Alvarez's interesting writing style. She wrote the book by starting in the 1980's and then it ended in 1956. As Alvarez begins the story it starts out at the island that they grew up on, the Dominican Rebublic. Then in the middle of the story the family abruptly leaves and flees to the United States were the story continues. There the family had to change there entire life style as they were thrown into New Yorks' "American Mainstream". The main characters of these fifteen short stories are the father Carlos, the mother Laura and their four children, Carla, Yolanda, Sandra and Sofia. The story was based around the years of their childhood into adult hood. This book of short stories was very entertaining and one could easily relate to each of them.

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Summary: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents Review
Review: When I started to read this book, I didn't really like it. I have never had to read a postmodern book before, so I really did not know what to expect. However, I kept reading and I really got into the novel. I like how the characters are developed through the story. It allows for the characters to grow on you which maked me wanting to know what was going to happen next. I felt the patriarchy of the family molded the family. It made it very difficult for the Garcia Girls to adapt to the States. Yolonda was the most described character who delt with her morality throughout the novel because of her roots. I saw assimilation, dissimilation, and transcultural views through the novel. Transcultural view was the most found because of the Latin hertiage being so strong and then moving to the United States made it tough to keep everything the same. I really found this book to be very entertaining because it describes what it must feel like to be an immigrant in the 1950s through on today. I recommend this book to read.