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A review by youreawizardjerry
Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
4.75
It’s rare to find a writer that can capture and break down complex emotion as imaginatively as CRG can. Cristina Rivera Garza's grief is palpable through her unique language on every page. Her writing is transcendent, leaving us with descriptions of life that all can feel but few could voice. Suffice to say… I am a big fan.
I loved that this book became a collection of communal grief, was never one of entertainment (although I was engrossed from start to finish). This is not "true crime" as a genre, this is reality. It came across as reading about someone closer than similar stories tend to feel, if that makes sense. The book brought me to take pauses several times wherein I had these repeating realizations that Liliana is gone and that is a constant for the Garzas and all who knew her. That this will continue to be their lives after we all close the book. Then I’d sob into the pages. As Cristina writes, the only difference between us and victims of femicide, is people we have & have not come across.
I do wish there was a final connection between the introduction and ends of the story though, because we do not see the narrator's journey that is set up in the beginning culminate to anything within the book. I understand that the idea of what justice means shifted as Cristina sat with her sister's memory, but I wish she had expressed that conclusion in the text to bring it all together. Overall, this is a beautiful contemplation on remembering someone whose been taken from you, and an incredible feat of the heart. It was an honor to witness this intimacy and I’m certain it will stay with me forever.
I loved that this book became a collection of communal grief, was never one of entertainment (although I was engrossed from start to finish). This is not "true crime" as a genre, this is reality. It came across as reading about someone closer than similar stories tend to feel, if that makes sense. The book brought me to take pauses several times wherein I had these repeating realizations that Liliana is gone and that is a constant for the Garzas and all who knew her. That this will continue to be their lives after we all close the book. Then I’d sob into the pages. As Cristina writes, the only difference between us and victims of femicide, is people we have & have not come across.
I do wish there was a final connection between the introduction and ends of the story though, because we do not see the narrator's journey that is set up in the beginning culminate to anything within the book. I understand that the idea of what justice means shifted as Cristina sat with her sister's memory, but I wish she had expressed that conclusion in the text to bring it all together. Overall, this is a beautiful contemplation on remembering someone whose been taken from you, and an incredible feat of the heart. It was an honor to witness this intimacy and I’m certain it will stay with me forever.