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Title: The Dirty Girls Social Club: A Novel by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez ISBN: 0312313810 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.73
Rating: 4
Summary: Very good!
Comment: I very much enjoyed "The Dirty Girls Social Club". I just happened to pick up this book at a book fair a while back and was instantly pulled into the lives of the "sucias". Each sucia tells parts of her life (and her friend's lives) from her own perspective. The sucias became friends while attending college in Boston. Every couple of months they meet up and catch up with each other's lives. The lives of Lauren, Usnavys, Sara, Rebecca, and Amber are all very interesting. Their lives are full of sorrow, pride, success, shame, joy, independence, and love - all the things that make a good read. The only thing I didn't like about this book was the character Amber. I found myself getting very bored with her chapters and skipping over them to read more about the other sucias. Either her character wasn't as developed as the others, or she just wasn't very interesting.
Overall, I would suggest this book to anyone who would like a light, easy read about 5 very different women who share the common bond of friendship.
Rating: 1
Summary: The Dirty Girls Social Club
Comment: It's a "girly" book. I can relate to all the characters in the book, except for the Amber. Amber's character simply throws me off, it's like they needed to have the mexican be someone important and a singer is all the author could come up with. I have an "Amber" type of friend and a more realistic career choice is a photographer.
Over all the book is an okay/funny vacational book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Look Out: Las Sucias Are Here to Stay
Comment: Six Latina women, friends since college at Boston University, meet biannually for a session of bonding. Together, they strengthen their ties through tears of sadness, loss, career woes, and man trouble and celebrate their joys as well. They call themselves Las Sucias, the Dirty Girls in solidarity with their Latin background. These chicas are not to be dismissed as the everyday Salsa dancing, loud color wearing Latinas we are exposed to in the media. They are from different economic backgrounds, parts of the country, and were raised with different values and even religions. This book, The Dirty Girls Social Club was all the buzz long before its release, the author, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez being touted as the Latina equivalent of Terry McMillan. Indeed, the sucias do have a special sister-girl thing going.
Are they loud and outspoken? You bet. Lauren Fernandez, a columnist for the Boston Gazette, is opinionated and confrontational as she endures the ignorance of her Ivy League colleagues and the humiliations of her cheating fiancée. With a Cuban father who is still waiting for Castro to die so he can go back to his beloved country and an Irish trailer trash mother from New Orleans, she eagerly takes on La Raza for fear of being found to be a fake. Takes from her column, Mi Vida, are a prelude to each chapter.
Are they sassy? You bet. Usnavys, pronounced Oooh-na-vees, not US Navys, which is what her Puerto Rican mother named her in honor of a ship. She grew up poor in the Boston projects, abandoned by her black Dominican father. She is a proud full-figured woman who uses her looks, achievements and credit cards to ward off her fears of being poor again. Which is why she cannot let herself love Juan. Yes, she does love him but you see he is poor, though highly educated and in love with Usnavys.
Rebecca Baca, from Albuquerque, dismisses the label of Mexican or Indian. You see her long established family of ranchers and business owners have occupied New Mexico for generations and boast of pure Spanish blood. Republican and conservative to a fault, she married a blond man who is chronically depressed and disappointed that she is not a "real Latina". She finds herself attracted to Andre, a Brit of Nigerian descent, who is also the financier of her Latina magazine, Ella.
Sara, a Jewish Cuban from Miami, is a white blonde Latina whose looks defy what a Latina should look like. She has it all. The rich, handsome husband, Roberto and the twin five-year old boys and a home in a ritzy part of Boston. She is known as the clumsy one but only her best friend and maid know that she is a victim of spousal abuse.
Elizabeth, a former model and now talk show hostess, is as her boss tells her an equal opportunity poster model. She is black with a Hispanic name and background and talks white. Born in Columbia, she and her mother have never let their color be an obstacle-it turns out race is the least of her barriers. A born-again Christian, she is hiding deep secrets that could possibly destroy her career in conservative Boston.
And Amber, who grew up Valley Girl in southern California, oblivious of her Mexican American heritage until she gets to college. It is there she discovers the Latin culture and her Mexican heritage in particular. She proudly claims her Aztec and Mayan backgrounds and joins the indigenous Mexica movement. She has been in the Rock en Espanol business for ten years, singing underground and producing her own records with her lover/husband, Gato, a native Mexican, with insecurities about her budding career. She changes her name to Cuicatl after an naming ceremony and then success becomes a reality. Is it all too much?
Told in the first person point of view of each of the six sucias, readers are treated to a front row view of the day in the lives of educated, middle/high class young women of Hispanic background. Some readers may think the ending is a little too pat and some naysayers will say it is unrealistic. But it is possible. Yes, it is and this novel opens up the door for more possibilities in telling Latina stories. A new voice in contemporary Latino literature, I look forward to Valdes-Rodriguez's next venture which promises to be every bit as stimulating.
Dera Williams
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Title: The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger ISBN: 038550926X Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Trading Up by Candace Bushnell ISBN: 078686818X Publisher: Hyperion Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros ISBN: 0679435549 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 24 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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