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abnormal_shadow's review
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I didn't go into this book with a clear understanding of what it was. I listened to this as an audiobook on Libby and I would very much recommend this method. It felt like a podcast. The main character address me as a character. In the book I answer her questions, I follow her story and I check up on her. The audiobook had music, the sounds of waves and the scratching of pens and pencils on paper. The main character is flawed, she often doesn't see how she makes people actually feel. She is confident and assertive to the extent that it took a public argument with her sister to understand how she actual hurt the people in her life (Fernando and the sister). Its seeing the other side of a child's life, how she feels she was doing her best, her side of the day that her son left, her side of the lives of those around her, her account of events. You can tell in the book that she is an unreliable narrator and its easy to sympathize with her until certain things click you as a reader get angry with her but not for long. She is not a bad person she is just doing bad things and doesn't understand that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Violence, Homophobia, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Infertility, Medical content, Miscarriage, Abandonment, Grief, Terminal illness, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, and Stalking
Minor: Kidnapping and Pregnancy
year23's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Creative format to tell a complex & touching story of Cara, a middle-aged immigrant woman reflecting on her life as she navigates the ever-increasing challenges the US various oppressive systems throw at her. This is an empathetic story, but doesn't hold back in painting the depths of Cara's flaws & failings, while also celebrating her strengths & triumphs. The definition of a lovable character.
Highly recommend, left me in tears by the end (the good kind!).
Highly recommend, left me in tears by the end (the good kind!).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Death, and Domestic abuse
readbycarina's review
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Abandonment
Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Pregnancy
readingwithcoffee's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Overall the book is about a woman using her job counselor more as therapist because she has no one to talk to and as the sessions continue and she looks for employment in an unforgiving country and city she unpacks the harm that’s been done to her and that she’s done to others.
A refreshing older woman protagonist but if you go in not expecting the character unpack domestic and child abuse and how she continued the cycles and tries it break them it may catch you off guard. I heavily recommend checking out the content warnings. Also most of the time the Spanglish made sense but there were times when instead “he has ten years” clearly being someone in English mimicking Spanish’s “Él tengo diez años”, instead at times it felt like taking a random word and making it Spanish to make sure we remember she’s poorly educated ESL especially that one sentence she didn’t recognize Chile the country despite being Latin American that seemed silly to me.
Small details but they bothered me, all in all Cara Romero is a very human character from her selfless virtues to her flaws that hurt everyone including herself. It made me cry which is a positive to the writer!
A refreshing older woman protagonist but if you go in not expecting the character unpack domestic and child abuse and how she continued the cycles and tries it break them it may catch you off guard. I heavily recommend checking out the content warnings. Also most of the time the Spanglish made sense but there were times when instead “he has ten years” clearly being someone in English mimicking Spanish’s “Él tengo diez años”, instead at times it felt like taking a random word and making it Spanish to make sure we remember she’s poorly educated ESL especially that one sentence she didn’t recognize Chile the country despite being Latin American that seemed silly to me.
Small details but they bothered me, all in all Cara Romero is a very human character from her selfless virtues to her flaws that hurt everyone including herself. It made me cry which is a positive to the writer!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Miscarriage, Grief, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Classism, Terminal illness, Sexism, Cursing, Child abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Death, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Stalking
graceesford's review
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abandonment, Grief, Deportation, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, Death, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Pregnancy, Physical abuse, and Infertility
faduma's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Physical abuse, Abandonment, Classism, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Sexism, Homophobia, and Violence
criticalgayze's review against another edition
emotional
funny
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
This is my 5th book for the Aspen Words Literary Prize longlist and my first audiobook of the year.
The audiobook was recommended to me specifically as the way to interact with this one, and I couldn't agree more. Rossmery Almante's portrayal of Cara Romero is incredibly endearing, and they do some fun and interesting things with sound effects and music that make the listening experience feel more immersive.
Storytelling gimmicks are a hard trick to pull off, and I didn't always groove with this one, but Cara Romero (through Cruz's caring work crafting her voice, is so indelible that this can often be overlooked. She is so incredibly funny but also so intuitively kind and self-reflective. I also like the satire present in some of the interstitial materials between interviews and the commentary those provide on the modern state of rent in America, especially in metropolitan areas.
The audiobook was recommended to me specifically as the way to interact with this one, and I couldn't agree more. Rossmery Almante's portrayal of Cara Romero is incredibly endearing, and they do some fun and interesting things with sound effects and music that make the listening experience feel more immersive.
Storytelling gimmicks are a hard trick to pull off, and I didn't always groove with this one, but Cara Romero (through Cruz's caring work crafting her voice, is so indelible that this can often be overlooked. She is so incredibly funny but also so intuitively kind and self-reflective. I also like the satire present in some of the interstitial materials between interviews and the commentary those provide on the modern state of rent in America, especially in metropolitan areas.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Homophobia, Abandonment, Physical abuse, and Cancer
Minor: Death, Misogyny, Infidelity, Infertility, and Sexual content
tanishah's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Grief, Emotional abuse, and Abandonment
agnesg's review
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abandonment
Minor: Infidelity, Death, and Grief
anna_23's review
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
In this book we are part of the 12 sessions Cara Romero has to attend for the Senior Work Program, technically to only give enough information so her social worker can help her find a job, but often diving into her everyday life, her relationship with her family including her son, who she hasn't seen in around 20 years and the lives of her neighbors in a close knit community in Washington Heights.
This book is for certain, one of the books that affected me the most, emotionally, this year. I found myself slowly getting attached to Cara and getting invested in her struggles and the ones of her friends and family. Angie Cruz did a wonderful job putting us in the mindset of a flawed woman who first deflected the fact that she did things wrong in her life and slowly learned that while for her it came from a place of love and care, she still did things that hurt people, especially her son Fernando.
Also Cruz showed the slow and rocky road of questioning your own set and often harmful beliefs (like internalized misogyny, homophobia or toxic masculinity) and unlearning them. While also exploring why they manifested themselves in the first place.
While I am often not a fan of the one sided interview narrative, this time it really worked for me. Mainly, because Cruz gave Cara such a lively and engaging voice that I didn't feel like I lacked another perspective. I was glued to the page (or the audiobook narrator's voice, I guess) listening to her sad and honest observations of her own actions, her love and support for the people around her and the charming humor that often came from her love for horoscopes. And while we only got Cara's perspective, I felt I got enough information about the other characters to understand why they acted the way they did. Especially toward the middle, when Cara was more open to be honest about her flaws and past hurts, which opened the possibility for really cathartic and beautiful recountings of conversations that were a joy to read.
I also loved how central the importance of community was in this book, which is a theme I almost always love. It was so lovely to see the care this little apartment block had for each other, which was mostly made up of immigrants from different Latin American countries.
One of my favorite relationships was between Cara and her neighbor Lulu. All the small little details, like the way Lulu helps Cara to get up in the mornings when she is struggling and Cara helps Lulu when she is overwhelmed with her family.
Additionally, we see how the community has to stand up against the increasing gentrification of their neighborhood and the rising unemployment after the 2008 recession.
Between the sessions we get documents that Cara had to fill out or received during the duration of the novel, during which I first, found myself zoning out but later found to appreciate, especially thinking about how many documents have been found of people throughout history and, that different to Cara's fictional story, we are not able to hear the stories that are attached to them.
I listened to the audiobook and I recommend it to anybody, who has the access and possibility to listen to it. The producers put a lot of work into it adding music, outside noises and more. The narrators (Kimberly M. Wetherell and
Rossmery Almonte) did an incredible job and brought Cara Romero to live.
Highly, highly recommend this book and hope everyone will enjoy Cara Romero's story as much as I did!
Also if you liked the way the relationship was written between Evelyn and Joy in 'Everything, Everywhere, All at One' I would 100% give this a try!
Trigger Warnings: homophobia, misogynie, domestic violence
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, and Abandonment
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