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I expected to love this book. The moving-backward chronology is appealing, but it is the title that had me excited! I wanted to read about how the Garcia girls lost their accent.

Some chapters are in first person, some in third. They focus on one character or another, interesting anecdotes sometimes, and sometimes not so exciting. I liked the last, "The Rudy Elmenhurst Story," and another one with a title that escapes me.

The Garcia girls are from a wealthy and well-connected family in the Dominican Republic. They witness political and personal upheavals, but there is really not all that much here about Americanization. I've seen many reviews that praise the book for its insights and "good writing" which I did not find. Perhaps that's because as an Anglo I am insensitive to some subtleties. Or perhaps it is the class warrior in me?

But there is also casual bigotry: the preference for light skin and blue eyes, the servant "Chino, whose slightly slanted eyes earned him that nickname," "the fag at the corner," and two Haitian characters who are each judged for their dark skin and presumed connections to voodoo. The cruelty to a cat. I was tempted to give it one star, which probably wouldn't have been fair.

I wanted some sense that the characters of the novel offered wisdom or growth of compassion or self-awareness, or if this is as some claim and a disguised memoir, I want some self-awareness on the part of the author. There is sympathy and some humor and sentiment, but no awareness of privilege.

The elements for a great book are here. I cannot help feeling this is not the best book it could be. The author might have done better to tell the story in chronological order after all, with a flashback, perhaps. The story needed a single main character, a consistent point of view, a story that ended with, perhaps, a confrontation between the DR girls and the American women they become.

Many people love this novel and I wish I were one of them.