Rating: 
Summary: FANTASTICO!!!
Review: Ms. Valdes-Rodriguez's debut novel about the ups and downs in the lives of six friends is a good one. Each and every character had a distinct and compelling personality.....introducing the soucias:
Usnavys - ghetto-fabulous with a successful career, she wants the best of everything...in life and love. But the two greatest loves in her life were her two greatest losses, and she doesn't dare trust a man with her heart anymore......
Elizabeth - breathtakingly beautiful, her career as Boston's most beloved anchorwoman masks a secret personal life that could put her career and the love of the other soucias in jeopardy...
Sarah - rich and beautiful, she appears to have it all. Married to a successful lawyer and her childhood love with two beautiful children, she is a stay-at-home mom whose eye for interior design could put even Martha Stewart to shame. But it's all a facade, and the secret Sarah harbors could cost her her life.....
Rebecca - Successful CEO of a popular Latina magazine, Rebecca is a control freak stuck in a loveless marriage. When love arrives with a handsome ebony face in the form of her benefactor, millionaire Andre Cartier, will Rebecca find the courage to throw caution to the wind?..........
Amber - A struggling musician, Amber makes the rounds, playing her music in different clubs with love of her life Gato. But then success comes calling, and money for the first time is no longer an issue...but her personal life begins to fall apart. Could it be that all that Amber needs is the music after all?
Lauren - After catching her admittedly unattractive fiancee in the act with a girl ten years her junior, Lauren sets out on a course of self destruction. But that road leads her directly to a impossibly handsome Dominican drug dealer...who could be just what she needs to mend the hole in her heart.
Slow at times, this tale picks up speed toward the middle, after which there is no looking back. The ending was such that I am holding out hope for a part two to "Dirty Girls"...dare we dream?
DYB
Rating: 
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: 
Summary: 3 1/2 stars for good writing
Review: This book got on my nerves! That said, I still enjoyed it and raced through it. Rodriguez has a wonderful talent for writing in many ways and her pacing and diaogue are quite good. Where the book failed for me is that I wasn't particulary drawn to all of the characters. Two of the characters (Sara and Amber) feel more like they were included to make points about spousal abuse and politics. They aren't very real characters and their voices get lost. Maybe instead of six characters, there ought to only have been four.
Maybe I am critical b/c I am like the women in this novel: an American Latina in her late 20's. I know women like the ones depicted here and the novel is broad in its appeal. The characters have different nationalities, skin tones, and religions. That is all reflective of the Latina U.S. experience. However, how come everyone in this book has money to burn? That certainly is unrealisitc considering their age. And what's up with the men? Absolutely no development there. Again, the men feel like book characters; even though that's what they are, as a reader I was super-conscious of the fact.
This book is escapist fun and has enough happy endings to satisfy a beach reader. Literature it's not, but it is a nice addition to the chick-lit genre.
Rating:
Summary: Sucias !
Review: This book is not strictly a girl's book at all ( I do admit at first it came out that way ) . To be honest I have no idea why I even got this book in the first place, but I'm glad that I did . This book has characters that you can relate to, despite where your from . It's well written ( except for a few spanish words here and there that some people might not be able to pick up ) .
The story revolves around 6 latinas that have been friends from their school days and manged to stay in touch for years . They made a pact to meet every once a year to catch up on the things that have been happening in their lives
since they parted 6 years ago . Hence they call their group ' The Buena Sucia Social Club .....
Lauren - the self-destructive Cubana . Who always tends to talk about her father , his hate of Castro and all about being Cuban . She sees a psychiatrist that keeps on telling her that she should undergo a 'cuba-dectomy' and stop talking about the past . She works for the 'Gazette' and writes a weekly Lifestyles column called ' My Life ', which is pretty much like a diary of her life . Although successful in her work, she doesn't have much success in her life in general and she's always in constant shambles through relationships that ends up nowhere ( not unless you count the bars as somewhere) .
Sara - A housewife and she has the life that all the sucias envy . Her husband Roberto is a lawyer in a successful firm and they have twin boys . Everyone thinks she has the best life as all of them, until she ends up in a hospital in a critical condition.....
Amber - The only one of the sucias who doesn't work and unsuccessful .She's an aspiring musician who's waiting for a big break . Her outlook in life changed when she met a man that introduced her to her Mexica Heritage and from there her beliefs and aspirations have changed.....
Elizabeth - A stunning dark-skinned Columbian who anchors for a morning show . Although she is one of the recognized face in the community, her job is getting in a way of her private life . She is secretly inlove with Lauren but never said so, she is also Sara's best friend who truly knows how Sara's life is and why she ended up the way she
did . As the story progress her private life is a total shock to all the sucias...
Rebecca - In all of the Sucias she's the most uptight and hence Lauren dislikes her . She is married to a caucasian man that none of the Sucias like . She owns a magazine called Ella . Despite all her riches in life , her marriage is in shambles and she is falling for another man that she knows that her parents will not approve of .
Usnavys - A really shallow person . She blames all her distrust in the male species from her father . She likes to wear expensive things despite comfort and keeps the tag on them because their not fully paid . Although she is inlove with a man, she doesn't admit it because he is poor and she says that she'd have enough of a poor life.
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