jdybs 's review for:

3.5
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes

This is my first book by Julia Alvarez, and I can see there's some good writing here. I enjoyed the stories and the richly developed characters. Once I'd accepted this book is magical realism, it made more sense to me. The constant use of Spanish words and phrases required keeping my Spanish to English dictionary by my side, and that was kind of annoying. For a Spanish speaker, I imagine this is a richer text.