Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
While the book had a great story with many important themes, the writing was simply off for me. I felt I couldn’t keep track of the timeline and expansive list of characters.
3.5 rounded up. I was dangerously close to making this one a DNF, so I’m glad I stuck with it.
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
really loved the storytelling - i found it difficult at points to keep straight whose perspective i was reading, which, though potentially could be disorienting, i found to actually support unity of shared perspective/family experience. really powerful character work
I was lucky enough to read this right before going to see the author speak. I was really glad I prioritized reading this so that I could hear more about what parts came from his real life. Hearing about how this was inspired by his own half brother and other people in his family after their death really makes the piece seem like a memorial to his fathers side of the family. I really like family explorations, and this one was very interesting in that it took place over a short period of time. I think it worked, there were so many characters and other things going on that it still felt like an epic. We also catch this family at a turning point, Big Angel (the patriarch of the family and Urrea’s half brother analogue) is organizing his mothers funeral as well as his birthday while also facing his own mortality. Not all of the characters are likable, but they are real and memorable. I think my favorite scenes are the ones with the miniature city, sweet at one point and hilarious when they are brought back around.
I absolutely adored this book, the characters, and the meta message of grace and time that slips away, almost unnoticed until...... Urrea is the most amazing writer and this book contains stunningly beautiful passages, thoughts and dialogue. Listen to the audio which comes alive with the author as narrator.
Well-written dive into multiple generations of a Mexican family in Southern California and Mexico. Engaging dialog and narrative especially from the patriarch looking back on his long life.
I'm finding that I don't have the right words for how I feel upon finishing this read.
Warm. Slightly buzzed.
Like, despite the chaos, I've just been given a great big hug.
It made me miss my own family. A lot.
Warm. Slightly buzzed.
Like, despite the chaos, I've just been given a great big hug.
It made me miss my own family. A lot.
3.5 stars. Wasn't sure I liked it very much til past the halfway point. It's a decent story, with a wide range of characters, a lot of flavor, and a lot of inside joke nostalgia that you get to peek in on. By the end: made me weepy. That's a success, I think.
This type of book is definitely not what I turn to - there's no real plot, as it takes place over two days and is simply a story about a Mexican/Mexican-American (extended) family. However, by the end of the book, I found myself enjoying the company of the family enough that it definitely at least made it into 3-star territory...perhaps 2 stars for the first day and 4 stars for the second day?
The good:
- An extremely authentic voice - I felt very connected to the language and the experience of the family and everything. While it would be a mistake to extend this scene to understanding Mexican-American lives more broadly, I felt like he earnestly captured this particular slice of community vividly and really appreciate the breadth of coverage.
- Big / Little Angel relationship - The relationship between the two brothers at the heart of the story (and their relationship to their shared father) is the glue that holds this book together, and it felt like a very real and true relationship. I felt the tension between them, their own lives, etc., and that's hard to do, IMO. But you understand enough of the history that the author managed to capture quite a lot of emotion inside a very short book.
- Big Angel's notebooks - I loved the way these insertions played into the storyline. It was just a great touch.
- Poverty - the way the family's struggles are described are intense and moving, and rather than being poverty porn or something, it feels matter of fact enough to convey serious trauma without overdramatization.
- El Yndio - This is the one one-dimensional character that I thought worked well, even if it felt like a bit of a trite simplification of the dynamics LBGTQ face within Mexican-American culture. His drag debut is such a vivid and incredibly described moment--it had me laughing, yet it felt only a little over-the-top and didn't diminish his character's narrow arc.
The less good:
- Too many characters - In an effort to capture as broad a swath of the culture as possible, the author seems to have tried to have at least one of every type of Mexican-American archetype he could think of, and it just led to a number of flat characters that aren't interesting at all and sort of muddy things, although I get the need for the big family/big tent type of character base. In such a short book, it just led to folks feeling extremely flat, even some of the core family members.
- La Gloriosa - Her character just sucks, and a lot of time is spent on her, and I do not understand what she is supposed to be bringing to the table except as an example of a particular and outdated expectation for Mexican/Mexican-American women.
The bad:
- Uncle Jimbo - I get that he wanted to put as crass and stupid a white American character as possible here, but geez...
- the cholos - I get that maybe these stereotypes exist for a reason, but this was an area that felt so cartoonish that it did not feel real. And unfortunately it really ruined what could have been a much more interesting character in Lalo, given the storyline he had to work with (ex-military, addict, etc.). The loss of the cousins was a well-crafted and emotionally compelling storyline, but it was severely diminished by Lalo and Gio and the handling of those characters, IMO.
Overall, I liked the book a lot more by the end than I did at the beginning, and like a number of our book club books am glad I read it because it exposed me to a book I wouldn't have picked out...but it still felt like a flawed book that I'm not sure I'd necessarily go out of my way to recommend.
The good:
- An extremely authentic voice - I felt very connected to the language and the experience of the family and everything. While it would be a mistake to extend this scene to understanding Mexican-American lives more broadly, I felt like he earnestly captured this particular slice of community vividly and really appreciate the breadth of coverage.
- Big / Little Angel relationship - The relationship between the two brothers at the heart of the story (and their relationship to their shared father) is the glue that holds this book together, and it felt like a very real and true relationship. I felt the tension between them, their own lives, etc., and that's hard to do, IMO. But you understand enough of the history that the author managed to capture quite a lot of emotion inside a very short book.
- Big Angel's notebooks - I loved the way these insertions played into the storyline. It was just a great touch.
- Poverty - the way the family's struggles are described are intense and moving, and rather than being poverty porn or something, it feels matter of fact enough to convey serious trauma without overdramatization.
- El Yndio - This is the one one-dimensional character that I thought worked well, even if it felt like a bit of a trite simplification of the dynamics LBGTQ face within Mexican-American culture. His drag debut is such a vivid and incredibly described moment--it had me laughing, yet it felt only a little over-the-top and didn't diminish his character's narrow arc.
The less good:
- Too many characters - In an effort to capture as broad a swath of the culture as possible, the author seems to have tried to have at least one of every type of Mexican-American archetype he could think of, and it just led to a number of flat characters that aren't interesting at all and sort of muddy things, although I get the need for the big family/big tent type of character base. In such a short book, it just led to folks feeling extremely flat, even some of the core family members.
- La Gloriosa - Her character just sucks, and a lot of time is spent on her, and I do not understand what she is supposed to be bringing to the table except as an example of a particular and outdated expectation for Mexican/Mexican-American women.
Spoiler
And her storyling being tied to Little Angel's in the end makes for a really annoying feature of his storyline that just doesn't feel like a satisfactory resolution, and this whole "coming home" schtick of that resolution is just made doubly annoying because of her.The bad:
- Uncle Jimbo - I get that he wanted to put as crass and stupid a white American character as possible here, but geez...
- the cholos - I get that maybe these stereotypes exist for a reason, but this was an area that felt so cartoonish that it did not feel real. And unfortunately it really ruined what could have been a much more interesting character in Lalo, given the storyline he had to work with (ex-military, addict, etc.). The loss of the cousins was a well-crafted and emotionally compelling storyline, but it was severely diminished by Lalo and Gio and the handling of those characters, IMO.
Overall, I liked the book a lot more by the end than I did at the beginning, and like a number of our book club books am glad I read it because it exposed me to a book I wouldn't have picked out...but it still felt like a flawed book that I'm not sure I'd necessarily go out of my way to recommend.