Who says that Young Adult books aren't good and shouldn't be read by actual adults? If anyone, then they are flat out wrong and this is one of the books that proves that.
This is a debut short story collection about Hispanic or Native American Women, or both, living in Denver, Colorado (which is a character of each story in and of itself!) - 11 stories in all. All of these women seemed so real that I honestly thought, initially, that these short stories were memoir based and were about real experiences that Fajardo-Anstine had herself! I also think that, in large part, many of the plots are so real life that we've either lived some version ourselves or know someone that has lived it.
For instance, in the title story, we learn about the close relationship and then falling out of two cousins: Sabrina and Corina and the struggles that one of them has with alcohol and substances. We all know or have experienced this: “By our mid-twenties, I saw Sabrina less and less. She worked nights. I worked days. She moved a few times and I lost track of her addresses, the names of her friends, the men she dated, the bars she tended. She rarely went to family dinners, but when she did, she was puffy-eyed and sallow-skinned, her slinky tops always falling off her shoulders." But we haven't experienced was having to do that same cousin's makeup for her wake.
I loved how Ms. Fajardo-Anstine takes on and writes about such hard things in such a matter of fact and yet beautifully delicate way that you can't help but just sigh even when the experiences are so bleak. I grew to admire the women that she wrote about because they prevailed in spite of or simply because of it all and had an inner strength, a grit, that most people don't have. Definitely well worth the time to read this book - the multiple times I read this book
This is a debut short story collection about Hispanic or Native American Women, or both, living in Denver, Colorado (which is a character of each story in and of itself!) - 11 stories in all. All of these women seemed so real that I honestly thought, initially, that these short stories were memoir based and were about real experiences that Fajardo-Anstine had herself! I also think that, in large part, many of the plots are so real life that we've either lived some version ourselves or know someone that has lived it.
For instance, in the title story, we learn about the close relationship and then falling out of two cousins: Sabrina and Corina and the struggles that one of them has with alcohol and substances. We all know or have experienced this: “By our mid-twenties, I saw Sabrina less and less. She worked nights. I worked days. She moved a few times and I lost track of her addresses, the names of her friends, the men she dated, the bars she tended. She rarely went to family dinners, but when she did, she was puffy-eyed and sallow-skinned, her slinky tops always falling off her shoulders." But we haven't experienced was having to do that same cousin's makeup for her wake.
I loved how Ms. Fajardo-Anstine takes on and writes about such hard things in such a matter of fact and yet beautifully delicate way that you can't help but just sigh even when the experiences are so bleak. I grew to admire the women that she wrote about because they prevailed in spite of or simply because of it all and had an inner strength, a grit, that most people don't have. Definitely well worth the time to read this book - the multiple times I read this book
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