How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Rating:
Summary: Marvelous; but no way is there much 'fiction' in it
Review: In this debut novel, Julia Alvarez is kidding herself and her readers if she thinks she's getting away by calling this fiction. What a wonderful, rollicking, emotional, roller-coaster of a story about the assimilation of a family - focusing mainly on the four de la Torre daughters - from the Dominican Republic into America after they fled for political reasons.
Enough time has passed that Alvarez's stature and place in the ranks of authors to become firmly established, but this book is still one of her best.

Rating:
Summary: berates Hispanic culture
Review: Alvarez does a commendable job of describing the immigrant experience in the U.S, with all its hardships and stumbling blocks. But though she offers an engaging portrayal of immigrant life, she shows a rather distant relationship to her Dominican roots. The novel repeatedly attacks the machismo she sees as inherent to Hispanic culture, at one point, she refers to a Dominican housewife as a "houseslave." Alvarez chooses to ignore the great strides Latin American women have made over the last decades (Violeta Barrios Chamorro, for example, became the first woman president of Nicaragua in 1990). Yolanda, her alter ego, berates the strong family ties of Hispanics, criticizing her parents for trying to impart some discipline (something good American parents apparently do not do). She characterizes the Dominican Republic as a "fishbowl island", a place filled with backward people. Yolanda knows or remembers so little about her homeland that it comes as little surprise that, on a trip to the island, her relatives chide her for forgetting her Spanish. The novel, is an above-average account of Hispanic life in the U.S, but told from the viewpoint of an outsider.

Rating:
Summary: Tries Too Hard
Review: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez certainly does give one an accurate idea of a Latin-American family. I feel that that is the only benefit of this book. This book is categorized as young adult, but there are many sexual situations as well as multiple expletives. I also feel that the author tries too hard to sound different and interesting. Many of her descriptions are forced and out of place. While I don't feel that this is a worthwhile read, it does give one a better understanding of a different culture.

Rating:
Summary: Relating to the Garcia Girls
Review: In my own analysis of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents I would first off like to say its brilliantly written, and has just enough humor to keep the book from getting old. This book is perfect for any teenage girl, especially one of Hispanic culture. The Garcia girls let you into their world. In each of their adventures you can on some level relate. The way the book is written from present to past is a amiable way of writing this story. Knowing how the girls turn out in their lives then retracing step by step how they got to that point is fulfilling. Having a different person narrate each chapter is a way to find out more about each individual character and how they look at things. Complying with the Garcia family and their struggle to be "normal" in this new culture is part of what makes
the book so genuine. Alvarez uses great detail in helping you to feel as though your in the exact setting as the characters. Overall it was an excellent book. I give it a 4!

Rating:
Summary: I did not enjoy this book much at all
Review: There were a couple of chapters that I enjoyed and found humorous but the rest of the book was not very good, in my opinion. I didn't like the reverse chronological order of the stories. I don't think it added to the book in any way, in fact I think it made it worse. I finished this book and wondered what the point of it all was.

Rating:
Summary: The Garcia Girls are true examples
Review: As I started reading this book, I was absolutely hooked by the first chapter. It reminded me of my life and I compared the life experiences of the Garcia family to mine. The author, Julia Alvarez, did a fine job depicting the life of Hispanic immigrants arriving in the U.S. and surpassing the many trials and tribulations faced in a new country. Julia Alvarez does an excellent job of making the journey of the Garcia family into an outstanding literary adventure. The interesting aspect about the book is how Julia Alvarez travels from the present to the past. Books most oftenly commence from the past and conclude in the future, but Julia Alvarez did a brilliant job of completing this eccentric task. Her book is filled with many different emotions, which makes the book more pleasant to read, because of the everyday drama portrayed in every chapter. The best feature about her book is how the story can be compared to common life experiences of any Hispanic family new to the U.S., but seems like a drama filled soap opera that is not real. Julia Alvarez did an extraordinary job on her book, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.

Rating:
Summary: Not Great
Review: I had to read a multicultural book for my ninth grade English class. The librarian told me to read this book because other students had loved it. So I read it and I didn't like it pretty much at all. The book is very confusing becuase it goes back in time especially when they are in there home country it's confusing to understand it. When they were in the USA it was okay but could have been better. I wanted to quit reading it but I couldn't but I did not enjoy reading it at all. I wouldn't reccomemd this book to anyone to read.

Rating:
Summary: Better than Tan
Review: I read this book as part of an ethnic Lit. class and fell in love with it. Julia Alvarez created great characters that came alive. I could not put the book down and with assigned reading that is usually not the case. For further reference the author is the character Yolanda, so to say it is unrealistic is untrue. I find myself reccomending this book to everyone I know. Out of 20 novels covered, the majority of our Lit. class chose this one as the best.

Rating:
Summary: Shallow
Review: What a disappointment! Halfway through, I considered quitting, although that would have been a mistake, since the novel does get better. It's just that it never becomes good. I understand the concept of inter-related stories forming a novel, but in this case, I suspect that Alvaraz was using this techniques as a shortcut. It seems that at the time that she wrote this book, she didn't have either the stamina or the skill to craft a true novel.
Technique aside, the story itself was lacking. I don't think Alvaraz understood what her story was. She touches on a lot of deep and fascinating subjects, and even has a few stories that showcase those subjects, but for the most part, she seems to miss her own point. The novel gets boring. One reason I suspected that she used the short stories as a shortcut is that the separate stories are supposed to be told from the point of view of the different sisters, but separate voices never emerge. There are differences that we are told about the sisters, but their own supposed voices never suggest those differences. (By contrast, think of the Poisonwood Bible, where each character has an unmistakable voice!) Also, since the characters are basically spoiled girly-girls, despite the contrast between them and their even more girly cousins, they're not that interesting in the first place.
Another complaint is that there are topics that glare in the book, but Alvaraz ignores. For example, the family is hurt and confused by the treatment they receive as Latinos in America, but it's clear that they've participated in thier own social crimes in the Dominican Republic, i.e. elitism and bigotry. It's hard to feel a lot of sympathy for them.
This just wasn't a very good book. I can't decide if it was really a waste of time, because as I said, Alvaraz touches on some fascinating subjects, i.e. the political situation in the Dominican Republic, of which I previously knew nothing, so this was somewhat enlightening. But another theme was feminism, and Alvaraz treated that in a most elementary way. There was no interesing discussion of what feminism really means to a modern Latina, or even what feminism is to anyone. She was very cliche.

Rating:
Summary: my review
Review: What I liked about this book was that it was pretty interesting because it was based on four girls life. How they crossed the border from the Dominican Republic to the United states. The stories not only reveal their personalities, they also show the reader what their journey into adulthood was like. Their journey was a difficult one. The girls were growing up in the United States by conservative parents. They were expected to live by Old world rules of their parents. The girls of course all rebeal in their own way. These stories that make up a wonderful book that keeps the reader enjoying it all the way to the end.it's amazing how they all tell there own stories backwards. It's a good experience to read what they as teenagers when through house and gound rules they faced with there parents. I like to compare parents and my parents compare to them are cool(but in away it's cool to have your parents watching over u all the time. But this four girls have there own great stories that they have shared with us that's what makes this book interesting.