I haven’t updated this blog because I haven’t felt like writing OR reading. I still need to write a review on the Blue Sword, and finish reading Wuthering Heights. I haven’t picked it up in over a month.
I sometimes get into these writing/reading slumps, but they usually don’t last this long. I do have a desire to read, but when I go to lay down and read I just can’t concentrate. Or I fall asleep after reading one page.
I blame the internet.
I am still alive! I’ve just been busy and sick lately. Damn winter illnesses! But I’ll be back in a few shakes.
I’m almost done with The Blue Sword (expect a review soon!), and I’m trying to decide what to read next. I thought my readers could help me choose. I’ve narrowed it down to a few choices.
Thanks.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about writing a novel on growing up half Cuban/Latina and half European/white, and what that means to me and how I identify. When I was younger, I never really thought about this. And I know I never really had to think about it because I was perceived as white and was never discriminated against because of my skin color/name/ethnicity. No one knew I was Cuban unless I told them. But then I would come home from school to my mom cooking picadillo on the stove and maybe one of her telenovelas playing in the background. Whenever my aunts visited (especially my Aunt Maggie), there was always loud voices and spanish words flying back and forth. I always felt connected to my heritage, but never explored my identity until recently. I still don’t know how to identify; I have a hard time saying I’m white even though I benefit from white skin privilege because I can’t deny my blood, and I have a hard time identifying as Latina BECAUSE I benefit from that white skin privilege. Being biracial or bicultural is a confusing thing.
Ever since I’ve been exploring my identity, and even before, I have been trying to read more Latina/Cuban writers. I feel connected to them; it’s like I’m reading my family history or reading prose by someone who understands me. And as a woman, their voices are relatable to my own feelings. Even if you’re not Latina, it’s still really important to read any published works you can by these women to understand their experiences – knowledge is power. And that is why I am going to share their life and works with you. Every few weeks, I hope to review another Latina writer. But for the first article on Latina writers, I chose to do my favorite author. Leave a comment if you’ve read her, or if this blog made you want to read her!
Born: March 27th, 1950
Julia was raised in the Dominican Republic, but was born in New York City. Her parents left NYC soon after she was born and returned to the D.R. They were still under the dictatorship of Trujillo, and her father became involved in the underground. When Alvarez was 10 years old, her family fled back to the United States after the underground’s failed attempt to overthrow the dictator. She knew little English, and was often made fun of by her classmates. Throughout grammar school and high school, Julia was extremely determined and knew she wanted to be a writer. On her website, she states:
“When I’m asked what made me into a writer, I point to the watershed experience of coming to this country. Not understanding the language, I had to pay close attention to each word — great training for a writer. I also discovered the welcoming world of the imagination and books. There, I sunk my new roots. Of course, autobiographies are written afterwards. Talk to my tías in the D.R. and they’ll tell you I was making up stuff way before I ever set foot in the United States of America. (And getting punished for it, too. Lying, they called it back then.) But they’re right. As a kid, I loved stories, hearing them, telling them. Since ours was an oral culture, stories were not written down. It took coming to this country for reading and writing to become allied in my mind with storytelling.”
In 1971, she graduated Summa Cum Laude from Middlebury College with a Bachelor or Arts degree. In 1975, she received a Masters in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. Afterwards, she began teaching creative writing at high schools and then colleges.
In 1991, while she was teaching at Middlebury College, she published her first novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, a story about four sisters coming to the U.S. from the D.R. with their family. It was a very big success, and she ultimately left her tenured teaching position to become a full-time writer. Future works included In The Time of the Butterflies, Something to Declare, !Yo!, In the Name of Salome, and Saving the World.
In addition to writing, Alvarez and her husband started an organic sustainable coffee farm and literacy center in the Dominican Republic. Proceeds from the coffee go to the school located on the farm which teaches literacy to adults and children as well as where foreign students come to learn about sustainability. You can learn more about this in her book A Cafecito Story.
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In The Time of the Butterflies
This was the first Julia Alvarez book that I read, and it is still my favorite. It may even be my favorite book of all time. I’ve given it as gifts, and everyone who reads it falls in love. This book (which was also made into a fairly decent movie) is about the Mirabal sisters – three women who were key members in trying to overthrow the vicious dictator, Rafael Trujillo, in the late 50s. This is historical fiction, and it is done very well. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking, and I still think about the book to this day.
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Before We Were Free
This is the story of 12-year-old Anita de la Torre, a young girl living in the Dominican Republic. She lives a happy life with her family (aunts, uncles, cousins, parents) in an island compound. However, when black cars with men in uniform begin showing up at her home, things start to change. The reader gets to see what it is like, as a child, to live under a dictatorship and how frightening it is. This is something you should read after reading In The Time of the Butterflies – it almost feels like a continuation, even though it is not.
Other works:
Yo!: A Novel
A Cafecito Story
Saving the World
Elisabeth: The Princess Bride, Austria-Hungary, 1853 (The Royal Diaries) by Barry Denenberg
151 pages
*** out of five stars.
This faux diary is based on the real life of Elisabeth, princess of Austria. It only encompasses the time during which she met and wed her husband. However, the most interesting part of this book is the appendix. It tells you what happened to the princess and her family members after she was married (which is far more gripping than the material presented in the diary). Photos of Elisabeth and her relatives, a detailed family tree, and additional sources to further read about her are also included.
This book is geared towards children or preteens, so it’s a very quick read. I read it in the span of an hour or so, and it was fairly interesting. It wasn’t the epitome of fine literature as the prose is quite simple, but it kept my interest. I needed something light and fun after reading my last book, and this was just what I needed.
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Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
448 pages
** out of five stars
This unfinished work by Nemirovsky is set in France during the Nazi occupation. She had originally planned to include five sections in the novel, but was only able to complete the first two before she was sent to a concentration camp.
The first section is titled “Storm in June,” and is a sampling of different residents of Paris, and how they fled for their safety. Many critics have said that the reader gets a feel for exactly how those people felt, but I found that this was not true. Each character or family had a chapter, and as soon as you became somewhat involved in their story, you were sprung to another point of view. I wasn’t able to grasp fully the scale of the event and the emotions that the characters experienced; because of this, I found most of this section to move along slowly. I didn’t care about the people involved, and found myself anticipating the next section. It needed to be reworked and edited, and maybe she should have focused on two characters instead of the five or so she included. This part really bogged down my mind, and I had trouble keeping my eyes open for more than three pages.
Part two, “Dolce,” focuses on the German occupation of a small village. I connected more with this section because the character development and descriptions were able to flourish. She includes a story of a young French woman who has a love affair with a German (even though her husband is fighting in the war), and must hide it from everyone in her home and town. Nemirovsky did a great job at describing the conflicting emotions between hatred and sympathy for the occupying soldiers. There was a lot of tension between the villagers because of this conflict, and that leads to some interesting events. However, because it took me such a long time to complete “Storm in June,” I had sort of mentally checked out of this book and just wanted it to be done. In retrospect, I probably should have taken my time and enjoyed the story more.
The appendix of this novella was the most interesting. It included Nemirovsky’s notes and what she planned to do with the rest of the book, a short section on her life and what eventually happened to her, and (the best part) letters that she and her husband wrote concerning this work and her eventual deportation to Auschwitz.
Overall, I don’t know if I would recommend Suite Francaise. Maybe pick up a biography of Irene instead, and read one of her completed works. Even though I enjoyed “Dolce,” I think there are other books out there (such as Sarah’s Key) that detail the German occupation of France in a more interesting manner.
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Pocketfull of Rye by Agatha Christie
224 Pages
***1/2 out of five stars.
When a wealthy businessman is found dead in his office with rye in his shirt pocket, investigators are unsure of what to think. There was no logical reason for the rye to be there – until Miss Marple, and elderly amateur detective, comes along and presents a plausible explanation that involves a popular nursery rhyme. The deeper the investigation went, more clues were revealed and suspicious individuals came out.
I thought this was classic Agatha Christie, with the usual red herring here and there, but I found the end to be not that plausible. I was waiting to be blown away with the end, as I usually am with her work, but this time I was left unsatisfied. However, the story was a fun, quick read, but I would not recommend this as someones first Christie book. If you want to read her books, start with And Then There Were None or Evil Under the Sun.
Amrita by Banana Yoshimoto
384 pages
**1/3 out of five stars.
I wanted to like this novel – Yoshimoto is one of my favorite authors. When I read her book Kitchen, I instantly fell in love with her style. It was very magical and dream like. I’ve read five other novels by her, and and each one did not disappoint. However, this one bored me and left me feeling cold. The protagonist, a young woman named Sakumi, is struggling with home life after the suicide of her sister. Her young brother possesses powers that let him read minds and see dead people, and Sakumi often has powers of her own. She has visions of her sister, her friends, people from her past, and loved ones in distant lands. The premise seemed interesting, but I found that about half of this book repetitious. Sometimes I would have to go back a few pages to make sure I had the right page and I just wasn’t reading something from a past chapter. The descriptions were often too mystical and far-fetched; I felt like I was reading a book written by a doe-eyed highschooler. The middle of this book was extremely slow, and the characters introduced were so ridiculous. The end was not fulfilling. This book was 200 pages too long. Maybe I’ve just gotten over the whole mystic dream-like writing, but that aspect really grated on my nerves this time – I really believe Yoshimoto overdid it. Skip this one, and pick up N.P. or Kitchen instead.
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304 pages
*** 1/2 out of five stars.
Ever since I was a young girl, I’ve read books about the holocaust. For some reason, the topic has always intrigued me. I’m ashamed to say that I did not know the extent of the French government’s involvement in the deportation, containment, and extermination of Jewish families. It’s not something that’s widely discussed or written about – this novel tackles that subject. It is based on true events.
There are two stories in Sarah’s Key. One takes place in the past, during the summer of 1942 in Paris. It follows a young Jewish girl named Sarah, who is captured in her home, along with her mother and father, by the French police. Before they are taken away, Sarah hides her young brother in a cupboard and locks him inside, believing they will soon return to set him free. She takes the key and keeps it in her pocket, hoping that her little sibling would be safe. Along with thousands of other Jewish families, her and her parents are taken to the Velodrome d’Hiver, a local sports arena, where they are left for days without much food or water. They are all then transported to local concentration camps, and eventually to Auschwitz.
The other story that takes place in this novel follows Julia Jarmond, a 45-year-old woman living in Paris in 2002. She is a writer for a local magazine, and is assigned to write about the anniversary of the Velodrome roundup. Julia learns about Sarah during her research, and discovers that the young girl and her family used to live in Julia’s new apartment. The more she learns about Sarah, the more she feels the need to locate and meet Sarah. Julia’s search for information is quite interesting.
I really found the majority of this book to be engaging. The descriptions of the roundup and concentration camps were graphic, but necessary. Even though I’ve seen countless books and movies about the holocaust, the descriptions never fail to shock and disgust me. There were scenes in this novel that turned my stomach, but readers should know what went on and how these individuals suffered. It is necessary in order to never forget.
Unfortunately, the story takes a sharp decline when Sarah’s story ends mid-novel. We find out the fate of Sarah’s brother way too soon, and we are left with the story of Julia’s marital problems and a contrived ending that does not satisfy. I wish the author would have kept Sarah’s narrative throughout the novel, as that was the most powerful part of the book. It lacked power after that, and I had to force myself to finish. Despite this, I still think it’s an interesting and important read.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
192 pages
Rating: ** stars out of five stars.
I knew that this book would be disturbing but I didn’t realize how much certain scenes would bother me. I understand that the prevalence of assault and rape in the story is supposed to enhance the climax of the plot, but at times the violence seemed gratuitous. Especially the one scene where two minors were involved…I won’t give it away. I’ve read multiple reviews of A Clockwork Orange online, and many readers stated that they felt bad for the protagonist. I don’t know how people can feel that after all that this character did in the first third of the book. While I do not agree with the methods of the government and police, I had a hard time working up any empathy for the kid. The other thing I didn’t like was the ending. Originally, the ending of the novel was cut by the publisher, but my edition had the ending still intact. I could see why the publishers wanted to cut this ending. It seemed forced, unrealistic, and unnecessary.
A Clockwork Orange does have some redeeming qualities. The slang used by the protagonist and his friends is known as Nadsat. It’s a combination of Russian, gypsy talk, and english slang. I thought I would have trouble reading it because most of this novel includes Nadsat words, but it wasn’t difficult at all. Most words you could figure out by the context alone, and some words were self-explanatory. The way Burgess crafted the language was just pure genius.
I read this right after finishing John Steinbeck’s classic East of Eden, so it was definitely a sharp difference as far as style and genre go. However, there were similarities in theme: good vs. evil, free will, and the importance of choices. A Clockwork Orange definitely had a more fatalistic brutal way of portraying these themes, whereas Steinbeck was more delicate, yet powerful.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
602 pages
Rating: * * * * * out of five stars.
“Don’t you see?” [Lee] cried. “The American Standard translation [of the Bible] orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”
A small word can change the meaning of central themes in the Bible. I never actually thought about that until I read this passage, so it’s always exciting to examine and think about new topics. My brain likes the workout.
Overall, I would consider this one of my favorite books. I may write about it again later on. While I was reading A Clockwork Orange (which was the next book I read), I kept relating the two novels, as both are about choice and the freedom to choose.
Welcome to my book blog. Here I will be reviewing my latest reads, discussing literature-related news, and other fun stuff. I’ll be updating at least twice a week, so keep coming back for more. If you have any questions, you can go to my website [www.shesabibliophile.com] and contact me. I hope you enjoy 
Thanks for stopping by.
