Rating: 
Summary: So So but not Great
Review: I bought this novel in light of the recent events in Miami relative to the Cuban American community and their views about Fidel Castro. It was an attempt to find out a little more about the political climate in Cuba and how it can divide families. Although the book was good in some parts, I found it to be written in a very disjointed manner and the story was, at times, difficult to follow. I wish that he author would have been a little more focused on where she was going and how she was going to get there. She skipped from one character to another in a fashion that I thought was annoying. Perhaps this is a novel that must be read twice in order to gain the full meaning and message. I was very disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Dreaming in Cuban
Review: I have to read this book for school, which automatically sounds a warning bell in my head: boring. So, as I sat at work with boredom threatening to force me to abandon all sanity, I sighed and picked up the book. From the very first sentence, I was hooked. Perhaps it wasn't only the plot that kept my attention focused, but also the fabulous writing style of the author. I didn't just read about Cuba, I felt Cuba. I didn't just read about the characters, I understood them. I ached for them. I pitied Pilar, whose mother reads her diary and punishes the young teenager for her emerging sense of sexuality. I pitied the twins, who faced a father's abuse and a mother's dwindling sanity with their stubborn, resilient silence. Cuban and United States relationships fall into the background amidst a story that could show up anywhere. The caring, but somewhat troubled grandmother, her rebellious daughter who's raising her own hellion, her troubled daughter who's twin daughters and young son have seen too much of the world... There is a certain sadness that follows these people struggling to go through the motions of love and family, held together by the ties of mother to child, forced apart by misunderstanding and uncertainty.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth reading!
Review: I highly recommend this book. It is so good on so many levels. It deals with family, politics, belonging, and so much more. I'm reading it a third time!
Rating:
Summary: Impossible to put down
Review: I read this book for the first time a few years ago. I could not put it down, and just kept re-readng it. This is is a beautiful book, the charecters are all beleiveable and the writing is flawless. My only regret is that a friend stole ths book, and I'm probaly never getting it back.
Rating:
Summary: It is a great book it really reminds me of where I came from
Review: I really loved the book, I understood exactly where Garcia was coming from. I would reccomend it to anyone in the mood for a little cultural healing, (there really are other cultures out there folks!) I just wish one day I can sit down and talk to this author face to face because her work was moving. I was turned on to her by my mom and now I talk about her even more than she does. Overall it shows "very" realisticlly how things are when a family breaks up due to domestic breakdown. (In this case fleeing Castro's regime)
Rating:
Summary: its awesome
Review: i really really liked it. it was very cool
Rating:
Summary: Intricate Web of Life
Review: I was told to read this book for a Latino Lit. class in college, and once I picked it up I wasn't able to put it down. This book vividly paints pictures of a family that is torn apart by things such as adultery, lust, insanity, and political insecurity...yet they are still able to be a family. This book was one of the best books I have ever read...I recommend it to everyone, and hopefully you can connect with it like I did!
Rating: 
Summary: Lovely Prose but a Very Fragmented Writing Style
Review: I'd heard such wonderful things about this book that I was very eager to read it. When I picked it up, I was expecting to love it, and I tried to love it...but I just couldn't. At least not as much as I thought I would. I didn't really find either the story or the characters as emotionally engaging as I thought I would (Celia was my favorite) and this was a huge disappointment. DREAMING IN CUBAN revolves around three generations of women (women, all of whom are a bit mad, play the predominant role in this book, although there are male characters) each attempting to come to terms with the revolution in Cuba in her "own" way. Celia del Pino has chosen to remain in Cuba, come what may, as has her daughter, Felicia. Celia's other daughter, Lourdes, however, has emigrated with her husband and baby daughter, Pilar, to New York City, leaving even Miami behind. Lourdes is convinced that, in order to leave Cuba behind, the family must also leave any trace of "Cubanness" behind...and this includes palm trees and warm weather. The third woman who is pivotal to the story in DREAMING IN CUBAN is Lourdes's daughter, Pilar, whom we see at various stages of her growth. I found it very difficult to identify with either Lourdes or Pilar because they were simply "too American." (That may be the very reason you do identify with them, though, so that is certainly not a criticism of the book, just an observation.) Pilar, an aritst, comes to see herself as the proverbial "dyed-in-the-wool" New Yorker. For her, Cuba exists only in absence. It simply isn't a presence in her life. She doesn't have to take any action to obliterate its memory from her consciousness although she does, at times, dream of returning to Cuba to live with Celia (her grandmother). Lourdes, Pilar's mother, is a far different story. She wants to feel as American as does Pilar, and she certainly tries, but feeling American is something that, for Pilar, is far easier said than done. Lourdes, though, is the quintessential "survivor" and she's determined to make a life, and a good life, in New York. She opens the Yankee Doodle Bakery and it's so successful that she opens yet a second one. While Lourdes is determined to assimilate herself into New York and even the cold, grey, winter weather, she still finds, to her dismay, that she hungers for the lush, tropical warmth of the south. This results in an ever-growing appetite for her husband, Rufino and for sticky buns, a hunger that eventually causes Lourdes to gain almost 120 pounds. Although Lourdes consciously wants no part of Cuba, it seems as though Cuba "owns" a very large part of her. Celia, to me, was the most interesting character in the book and the one with whom I felt the most empathy. Perhaps it's because she chose to remain in Cuba. Perhaps it's the poignant story of her brief but intense love affair with Gustavo, a man she never forgets and a man she writes to on the eleventh day of every month...because that's the day he left her. Cristina Garcia does write beautiful prose. It's lyrical, it's haunting and it is, at times, quite hallucinatory. And the book has an intense, magical, mystical quality that I really loved. But structurally, DREAMING IN CUBAN is a mess. From the very first page, the book is difficult to follow. It jumps from year to year and character to character and even from decade to decade, seemingly without rhyme or reason, often leaving the reader feeling quite disoriented. There is a family tree in the front of the book and whenever I see a family tree in a work of fiction, I get a bad feeling about the book. Family trees are usually inserted into fiction books because the writing isn't clear enough for us to keep the characters straight. DREAMING IN CUBAN has some wonderful stuff in it, but the characterization suffers from Garcia's fragmentary writing style as does the story. I think it's a good first effort, and a sophisticated one, but I think a clearer, cleaner narrative would have allowed readers a lot more emotional engagement with the characters and, overall, improved this book greatly. It's a shame the structure is such a mess because the writing is really quite lovely. I would recommend this book to people who can't get their fill of Latin American literature (though Garcia lives in the US) and I will read more of Garcia's work myself, despite my misgivings about DREAMING IN CUBAN. This author's writing is just too good to dismiss with her debut novel.
Rating:
Summary: A Wallace Stegnar poem translated in dreamily written prose
Review: The description and story posessed a dream-like quality that called to mind a dreamworld long lost. The characters are rich and human, creating an easy to relate to story. The book calls to mind Wallace Stegnar's Key West poems. It is quite interesting to keep a book of his poems with you. A tiumphant first book by Garcia and worth reading at least twice
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and engrosing
Review: This book tells the story of three women's lives, from each of their perspectives. Although each of the women had different loyalties and made very different decisions regarding the direction of their lives based on those loyalties, you never felt that one character was more "right" than the others. In all it was a great story about a mother and her two daughters and their relationships with each other, the men in their lives, and their countries (Cuba and the United States).
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