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A review by mbondlamberty
Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Díaz
4.0
What a powerful read (or listen in my case).
It helps to be bilingual, and if you are bilingual and not familiar with the Puerto Riqueño patois you might need an urban dictionary kind of place though I imagine Google would do.
As an educator I totally want to invite Ms. Díaz to talk to my students. She has such a powerful voice.
As a history teacher I wish more was spent on Puerto Rican history which she delves into in the 4th part, but she covers a lot of the Puerto Rican diaspora in Miami (which of course surprised me as I know more of the Puerto Rican diaspora in NY and upstate).
As a required reporter it killed me that no one got her help sooner. I feel that her teachers were criminal in not doing anything (a bit of a small spoiler here: except the one that encouraged her to submit the piece that won the prize). That is what keeps away the 5th star, which is no shade on the author but to read about abuse repeatedly is just a hard go, to read about a child getting abused and homophobia in the military was just depressing. But the fourth part and the final note were very uplifting. Sad to find out that it wasn't actually the author's voice, but you can't get too greedy.
It helps to be bilingual, and if you are bilingual and not familiar with the Puerto Riqueño patois you might need an urban dictionary kind of place though I imagine Google would do.
As an educator I totally want to invite Ms. Díaz to talk to my students. She has such a powerful voice.
As a history teacher I wish more was spent on Puerto Rican history which she delves into in the 4th part, but she covers a lot of the Puerto Rican diaspora in Miami (which of course surprised me as I know more of the Puerto Rican diaspora in NY and upstate).
As a required reporter it killed me that no one got her help sooner. I feel that her teachers were criminal in not doing anything (a bit of a small spoiler here: except the one that encouraged her to submit the piece that won the prize). That is what keeps away the 5th star, which is no shade on the author but to read about abuse repeatedly is just a hard go, to read about a child getting abused and homophobia in the military was just depressing. But the fourth part and the final note were very uplifting. Sad to find out that it wasn't actually the author's voice, but you can't get too greedy.