Travis's Reviews > How the GarcÃa Girls Lost Their Accents
How the GarcÃa Girls Lost Their Accents
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I enjoyed this quite a lot, but I really think it should have been marketed as a book of short stories. Instead it's a book of short stories that is called a novel, yet has none of the cohesion or overarching plot required of a novel, though the stories are all about the same four women. It's also very obvious that many of these stories were originally published separately, as there's a lot of repeated background info, introducing characters as if we've never met them before when it's the fifth time they've appeared, etc. There are also a handful of stories in first person, when the majority are third person, and that kind of makes it feel patched together, too. (There was also one very bizarre story where it was first person, except all the girls were named in third person. So even though the narrator was saying I and we and us in reference to the four sisters, it sounded like there was a mysterious fifth sister doing the narration because she attributed actions and dialogue to all four in third person. I...have never seen a story written like that before and hope never to do so again. It was disconcerting and a very strange choice.)[return][return]Anyway, I really did enjoy the individual stories quite a lot, and found the book hard to put down. I just am kind of annoyed with it for saying it's a novel when it's not, as that made me keep expecting things that it never delivered.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
December 1, 2008
–
Finished Reading
January 6, 2011
– Shelved as:
2008
January 6, 2011
– Shelved
January 23, 2018
– Shelved as:
young-adult
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Maureen
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rated it 1 star
Apr 08, 2015 04:08PM

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And yes, I do see the "strange" perspective when first person was used yet third person was still used to refer to all four authors. But I am a strong believer that the author chose to do everything with a purpose and we can only imagine and interpret what she meant like that.
Of course, I say all this with great acknowledgement to your feelings and opinions about the book as well. I just wanted to include my perspective on things. Have a good day.