Unlike this American novelist’s much lauded American Dirt which followed a rather straight geographic and time line, in the first 30 pages alone of this one, the reader is introduced to several families over three or four generations, in three widely separated sites. Chapters skip backwards and forward in time and sideways in space.
In an 18 page chapter, a 20 year old girl goes through endless debates with her introspective self about which of two boys she should get serious about, complete with «ribs quavering under her skin. » In another place the same girl «could hear their hearts skidding and thudding in an attempt at silence. »
The overt racism of some of the characters causes family animosity, and the idiotic complexity of American health care insurance schemes is discussed in a realistic way. There is the inevitable révélation of an unsuspected paternity, a seeming necesssity in modern novels.
The overarching message is a homage to the simpler lifestyles of the author’s native Peurto Ricans, compared that in New York, New Jersey, St. Louis, Missouri, and even Trinidad.
The excessive emotionality of all the characters and the physiologically impossible reactions to those emotions spoil this book for me. It is much inferior to American Dirt in my estimation.
2.5/5
The Passionate Reader 