A review by bettybookbranch
For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts: A Love Letter to Women of Color by Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez

1.0

I was very excited to get this book and was expecting something completely different. I want to start off saying that I am a Latina with immigrant parents, so this book was targeted to people like me. From the very beginning, it is evident that the author is writing from a place of anger and pain. And although I can relate to many stories of discrimination, I just couldn’t relate to this book. It is very divisive and makes too many generalizations about BIPOC and white people… basically everyone. Throughout the book she uses her skin color to define who she is… but we are much more than that. Every chapter blames someone else (white people) for her bad experiences. There is never any accountability for herself. As a Latina, one of the things I grew up knowing was that I had to advocate for myself. There is none of that in here. It is full of negativity and the assumption that all Latino people need to think the same. She portrays herself as a migrant who is deeply rooted in her Nicaraguan culture, but I’m not convinced. There are too many contradictions in her upbringing that lead me to believe that her experience comes from hatred. For example, she mentions over and over again her strict, evangelical upbringing. Yet she talks about embracing the Chonga culture as her own after she studied it in graduate school. Basically she became something she never was. I am less than impressed with this book and shocked it’s been so well received by Latinos.