What Night Brings

Rating:
Summary: Rise to the top
Review: This is a great book i read a review from Hispanic magazine about this book. It looked great my kind of book. Written by a latina writer, compared to julia alvarez and sandra cisneros made this book become part of my favorites category. I looked for it at waldenbooks, borders, brent books, in the CPS and did not find it. So I had it ordered for me. Once I got my hands on it I couldn't stop reading. I too me 4 days to finish it. I tought it was great! Funny, shocking (Specially in the end), sorrowful, and dramatic (touching). If any of those words match your likes then read it. I highly recommend it. I also suggest to start putting this book up in the shelves or public libraries.

Rating:
Summary: Rise to the top
Review: This is a great book i read a review from Hispanic magazine about this book. It looked great my kind of book. Written by a latina writer, compared to julia alvarez and sandra cisneros made this book become part of my favorites category. I looked for it at waldenbooks, borders, brent books, in the CPS and did not find it. So I had it ordered for me. Once I got my hands on it I couldn't stop reading. I too me 4 days to finish it. I tought it was great! Funny, shocking (Specially in the end), sorrowful, and dramatic (touching). If any of those words match your likes then read it. I highly recommend it. I also suggest to start putting this book up in the shelves or public libraries.

Rating:
Summary: Exposing dysfunctional parenting
Review: What makes Carla Trujillo's book so compelling is her portrayal of the family dynamics. Although the narrator, Marci, is only 11 years old, she makes profound observations about what holds her parents' marriage together in spite of her father's brutality and hence what prevents her mother from intervening to protect the children. Trujillo balances the horror of the father's cruelty with a lot of humor and great tenderness between the two sisters. She also reveals the roles of extended family members in the continuation of her family's troubles; some relatives attempt to shield the children, while others are unwittingly complicit in their suffering. It's a heartbreaking story overall, but Trujillo has such talent as a writer because it isn't a depressing read, and it doesn't leave you frustrated. On the contrary, the ending of the book finds the brutalized sisters empowered and on the road to recovery. If more people could read this book, perhaps this unfortunate pattern of so many women's co-dependent "love" leaving their children open to paternal abuse and permanent scars would be broken. Only by writers having the courage to explore family dynamics with the kind of honesty Trujillo does and readers openly discussing this widespread problem will things start to change within families. This is a good start & a great read.

Rating:
Summary: Loved this book
Review: What Night Brings is a wonderfully readable coming of age story written with the perspective of a young teen. Marci Cruz's thought process really reflects her age and circumstances, unlike some novels written in that voice with adult thoughts coming from a child protagonist. It captured my heart from the first paragraph, and I read it straight through in only a few days. Was glad to find it on the public library's new books shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Through
Review: Winner of the M?rmol Prize, Trujillo's impressive debut tells the story of Marci Cruz in the late 1960s. She prays daily to become a boy because then she can win the girl of her dreams. And she also prays for God to make her alcoholic father go away. Some of the passages seem to gloss over what Marci has to deal with, but Trujillo's strength as a storyteller compels the reader forward because we want Marci to succeed. In some ways, she is all of us, where we might not fit into the world exactly, but we're trying to find out where we belong. Bringing to mind such books as Dorothy Allison's "Bastard out of Carolina", "What Night Brings" is a heartwarming tale of a young girl at odds with her world (her family, her Church) who is on a quest for wholeness.

Rating:
Summary: Through
Review: Winner of the Mármol Prize, Trujillo's impressive debut tells the story of Marci Cruz in the late 1960s. She prays daily to become a boy because then she can win the girl of her dreams. And she also prays for God to make her alcoholic father go away. Some of the passages seem to gloss over what Marci has to deal with, but Trujillo's strength as a storyteller compels the reader forward because we want Marci to succeed. In some ways, she is all of us, where we might not fit into the world exactly, but we're trying to find out where we belong. Bringing to mind such books as Dorothy Allison's "Bastard out of Carolina", "What Night Brings" is a heartwarming tale of a young girl at odds with her world (her family, her Church) who is on a quest for wholeness.

Rating:
Summary: Through
Review: Winner of the Mármol Prize, Trujillo's impressive debut tells the story of Marci Cruz in the late 1960s. She prays daily to become a boy because then she can win the girl of her dreams. And she also prays for God to make her alcoholic father go away. Some of the passages seem to gloss over what Marci has to deal with, but Trujillo's strength as a storyteller compels the reader forward because we want Marci to succeed. In some ways, she is all of us, where we might not fit into the world exactly, but we're trying to find out where we belong. Bringing to mind such books as Dorothy Allison's "Bastard out of Carolina", "What Night Brings" is a heartwarming tale of a young girl at odds with her world (her family, her Church) who is on a quest for wholeness.