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A review by bookofcinz
Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Díaz
3.0
Jaquira Diaz’s memoir Ordinary Girls is beautifully written, strong, raw and deeply honest.
I really struggled to write a review for this book because it was so all encompassing and left me emotionally raw. I could not put into words how reading of Diaz’s life affected me and how upsetting to read the mother and daughter relationship.
Starting in Puerto Rico and moving to the US, Diaz’s walks us through her family dynamic which is filled with “things we don’t talk about”, trauma, abuse, mental illness and struggle. There are some moments in the book that really stood out to me, see below the quotes.
My Grandmother was the first person to ever call me nigger
Papi was never home. He’d brought us from Puerto Rico in search of a better life, had left behind his life as a hustler, his penthouse apartment, his cars and properties, to work two jobs. One at a factory and the other as a security guard.
We’re supposed to love our mothers. We’re supposed to trust them and need them and miss them when they’re gone. But what if that same person, the one who’s supposed to love you more than anyone else in the world, the one who’s supposed to protect you, is also the one who hurts you the most?
When I turned eighteen, I would cover the tattoo with rose. Almost a decade later, a friend who’d spent five years in lockup would tell me that in prison, a rose tattoo meant you’d spent a birthday behind bars.
Puerto Rico, seized, exploited, first by the Spanish colonizers, then by Americans who conferred citizenship to Puerto Ricans only so they could be drafted into military service during World War 1, but didn’t allow us the same voting right as other US Citizens
The Puerto Rican women sterilized by the American Government without their consent.
In her review Diaz said, This is who I write about and who I write for. For the girls who are angry and lost. For the girls who never saw themselves in books. For the ordinary girls. Please go read it.
Thanks Algonquin for this book.
I really struggled to write a review for this book because it was so all encompassing and left me emotionally raw. I could not put into words how reading of Diaz’s life affected me and how upsetting to read the mother and daughter relationship.
Starting in Puerto Rico and moving to the US, Diaz’s walks us through her family dynamic which is filled with “things we don’t talk about”, trauma, abuse, mental illness and struggle. There are some moments in the book that really stood out to me, see below the quotes.
My Grandmother was the first person to ever call me nigger
Papi was never home. He’d brought us from Puerto Rico in search of a better life, had left behind his life as a hustler, his penthouse apartment, his cars and properties, to work two jobs. One at a factory and the other as a security guard.
We’re supposed to love our mothers. We’re supposed to trust them and need them and miss them when they’re gone. But what if that same person, the one who’s supposed to love you more than anyone else in the world, the one who’s supposed to protect you, is also the one who hurts you the most?
When I turned eighteen, I would cover the tattoo with rose. Almost a decade later, a friend who’d spent five years in lockup would tell me that in prison, a rose tattoo meant you’d spent a birthday behind bars.
Puerto Rico, seized, exploited, first by the Spanish colonizers, then by Americans who conferred citizenship to Puerto Ricans only so they could be drafted into military service during World War 1, but didn’t allow us the same voting right as other US Citizens
The Puerto Rican women sterilized by the American Government without their consent.
In her review Diaz said, This is who I write about and who I write for. For the girls who are angry and lost. For the girls who never saw themselves in books. For the ordinary girls. Please go read it.
Thanks Algonquin for this book.