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cookedw 's review for:
The House of Broken Angels
by Luis Alberto Urrea
This type of book is definitely not what I turn to - there's no real plot, as it takes place over two days and is simply a story about a Mexican/Mexican-American (extended) family. However, by the end of the book, I found myself enjoying the company of the family enough that it definitely at least made it into 3-star territory...perhaps 2 stars for the first day and 4 stars for the second day?
The good:
- An extremely authentic voice - I felt very connected to the language and the experience of the family and everything. While it would be a mistake to extend this scene to understanding Mexican-American lives more broadly, I felt like he earnestly captured this particular slice of community vividly and really appreciate the breadth of coverage.
- Big / Little Angel relationship - The relationship between the two brothers at the heart of the story (and their relationship to their shared father) is the glue that holds this book together, and it felt like a very real and true relationship. I felt the tension between them, their own lives, etc., and that's hard to do, IMO. But you understand enough of the history that the author managed to capture quite a lot of emotion inside a very short book.
- Big Angel's notebooks - I loved the way these insertions played into the storyline. It was just a great touch.
- Poverty - the way the family's struggles are described are intense and moving, and rather than being poverty porn or something, it feels matter of fact enough to convey serious trauma without overdramatization.
- El Yndio - This is the one one-dimensional character that I thought worked well, even if it felt like a bit of a trite simplification of the dynamics LBGTQ face within Mexican-American culture. His drag debut is such a vivid and incredibly described moment--it had me laughing, yet it felt only a little over-the-top and didn't diminish his character's narrow arc.
The less good:
- Too many characters - In an effort to capture as broad a swath of the culture as possible, the author seems to have tried to have at least one of every type of Mexican-American archetype he could think of, and it just led to a number of flat characters that aren't interesting at all and sort of muddy things, although I get the need for the big family/big tent type of character base. In such a short book, it just led to folks feeling extremely flat, even some of the core family members.
- La Gloriosa - Her character just sucks, and a lot of time is spent on her, and I do not understand what she is supposed to be bringing to the table except as an example of a particular and outdated expectation for Mexican/Mexican-American women.
The bad:
- Uncle Jimbo - I get that he wanted to put as crass and stupid a white American character as possible here, but geez...
- the cholos - I get that maybe these stereotypes exist for a reason, but this was an area that felt so cartoonish that it did not feel real. And unfortunately it really ruined what could have been a much more interesting character in Lalo, given the storyline he had to work with (ex-military, addict, etc.). The loss of the cousins was a well-crafted and emotionally compelling storyline, but it was severely diminished by Lalo and Gio and the handling of those characters, IMO.
Overall, I liked the book a lot more by the end than I did at the beginning, and like a number of our book club books am glad I read it because it exposed me to a book I wouldn't have picked out...but it still felt like a flawed book that I'm not sure I'd necessarily go out of my way to recommend.
The good:
- An extremely authentic voice - I felt very connected to the language and the experience of the family and everything. While it would be a mistake to extend this scene to understanding Mexican-American lives more broadly, I felt like he earnestly captured this particular slice of community vividly and really appreciate the breadth of coverage.
- Big / Little Angel relationship - The relationship between the two brothers at the heart of the story (and their relationship to their shared father) is the glue that holds this book together, and it felt like a very real and true relationship. I felt the tension between them, their own lives, etc., and that's hard to do, IMO. But you understand enough of the history that the author managed to capture quite a lot of emotion inside a very short book.
- Big Angel's notebooks - I loved the way these insertions played into the storyline. It was just a great touch.
- Poverty - the way the family's struggles are described are intense and moving, and rather than being poverty porn or something, it feels matter of fact enough to convey serious trauma without overdramatization.
- El Yndio - This is the one one-dimensional character that I thought worked well, even if it felt like a bit of a trite simplification of the dynamics LBGTQ face within Mexican-American culture. His drag debut is such a vivid and incredibly described moment--it had me laughing, yet it felt only a little over-the-top and didn't diminish his character's narrow arc.
The less good:
- Too many characters - In an effort to capture as broad a swath of the culture as possible, the author seems to have tried to have at least one of every type of Mexican-American archetype he could think of, and it just led to a number of flat characters that aren't interesting at all and sort of muddy things, although I get the need for the big family/big tent type of character base. In such a short book, it just led to folks feeling extremely flat, even some of the core family members.
- La Gloriosa - Her character just sucks, and a lot of time is spent on her, and I do not understand what she is supposed to be bringing to the table except as an example of a particular and outdated expectation for Mexican/Mexican-American women.
Spoiler
And her storyling being tied to Little Angel's in the end makes for a really annoying feature of his storyline that just doesn't feel like a satisfactory resolution, and this whole "coming home" schtick of that resolution is just made doubly annoying because of her.The bad:
- Uncle Jimbo - I get that he wanted to put as crass and stupid a white American character as possible here, but geez...
- the cholos - I get that maybe these stereotypes exist for a reason, but this was an area that felt so cartoonish that it did not feel real. And unfortunately it really ruined what could have been a much more interesting character in Lalo, given the storyline he had to work with (ex-military, addict, etc.). The loss of the cousins was a well-crafted and emotionally compelling storyline, but it was severely diminished by Lalo and Gio and the handling of those characters, IMO.
Overall, I liked the book a lot more by the end than I did at the beginning, and like a number of our book club books am glad I read it because it exposed me to a book I wouldn't have picked out...but it still felt like a flawed book that I'm not sure I'd necessarily go out of my way to recommend.