|
Editorial/Description:Product Description: A vibrant, can?t-put-it-down novel of six friends?each one an unforgettable Latina woman in her late ?20s?and the complications and triumphs in their lives
Inseparable since their days at Boston University almost ten years before, six friends form the Dirty Girls Social Club, a mutual support and (mostly) admiration society that no matter what happens to each of them (and a lot does), meets regularly to dish, dine and compare notes on the bumpy course of life and love.
Las sucias are:
--Lauren, the resident ?caliente? columnist for the local paper, which advertises her work with the line ?her casa is su casa, Boston?, but whose own home life has recently involved hiding in her boyfriend?s closet to catch him in the act
--Sara, the perfect wife and mother who always knew exactly the life she wanted and got it, right down to the McMansion in the suburbs and two boisterious boys, but who is paying a hefty price
--Amber, the most idealistic and artistic member of the club, who was raised a valley girl without a word of Spanish and whose increasing attachment to her Mexica roots coincides with a major record label?s interest in her rock ?n? roll
--Elizabeth, the stunning black Latina whose high profile job as a morning television anchor conflicts with her intensely private personal life, which would explain why the dates the other dirty girls set her up on never work out
--Rebecca, intense and highly controlled, who flawlessly runs Ella, the magazine she created for Latinas, but who can?t explain why she didn?t understand the man she married and now doesn?t even share a room with; and
--Usnavys, irrepressible and larger than life, whose agenda to land the kind of man who can keep her in Manolo Blahniks and platanos almost prevents her seeing true love when it lands in her lap.
There?s a lot of catching up to do.
Amazon.com Review: The Dirty Girls Social Club closely resembles Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale: a handful of young women seek real love and job satisfaction. Unlike McMillan, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez has completely thrown out any literary pretensions whatsoever, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Dirty Girls is a fun, easy, ultimately charming read, not least because the girls themselves are so appealing. Six Latina women become fast friends at Boston University and thereafter meet as a group every few months. Now in their late twenties, they're each on the cusp of the life they want. The novel is narrated in turn by each woman. Feisty Lauren has a column at the Boston Globe, but can't help falling for losers; ghetto-elegant Usnavys is trying to find a man to match her own earning power and expensive tastes; uptight Rebecca is a successful magazine publisher and an unsuccessful wife; beautiful TV anchor Elizabeth has a secret; Sara leads a Martha-Stewart-perfect life as a homemaker; and Amber is a hopeful rock musician in L.A. The novel works because Valdes-Rodriguez has compassion for her characters; each is faulted, but none is culpable. She also has an eye for the telling detail, as when Rebecca tries to befriend her white husband's stuffy family: "His sister took step classes with me and we shopped for clothes together on Newbury Street and went to the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum one afternoon with Au Bon Pain sandwiches in our handbags." Something about those sandwiches makes the whole enterprise seem more poignant. On the down side, Valdes-Rodriguez is so eager to make things work out for her ladies, her writing sometimes beggars belief. Men actually say things like "Swear to me you're happily married, and I'll stop pursuing you." Yes, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is, in fact, the Latina Terry McMillan. That is, if McMillan were a slighty guiltier pleasure. --Claire Dederer
Customer Reviews:
Mas vale no leerlo
October 26, 2008
Como se ve en la sinopsis del libro en ingles, por una lectura (muy breve, para no sufrir excesivamente), se confirma el comentario en el sentido de que la autora, en efecto, carece de toda pretension literaria, ya que pasta de escritora no tiene ni habra tenido nunca, solo de ensuciadora de laminitas de celulosa sacrificada para permitirle emitir sus zonceras. Para colmo de males, este libro sale en casi todas las busquedas, como basura indeseada y estorbante. Habria sido tal vez mas interesante de haberlo escrito en castellano la tipa, pero eso, sin duda alguna, habria sido pedirle peras al olmo. No gasten plata en este simulacro literario, indigno de ni un minuto de lectura.
Funny, Touching, Easy to Read, Great Book
(1 of 1 Found this Helpful)
August 16, 2008
Now and then, I enjoy reading something fun and different, way out of my normal genre. I found this book to be very easy to read, filled with a lot of great insights to life and love, friendship and relationships. I like the idea that friendships formed in high school and college can last a lifetime. Here are some of my random comments about the book.
1. The author is a pro at writing in the first person and giving us a sometimes hilarious stream of consciousness as each of the six girls tells us what is going on in their lives at a given moment. We receive these extremely private thoughts and private reactions to what is being said about them that makes us understand and enjoy each of the characters. For me, this is the main core of the enjoyment of the book. It is surprisingly well done and intimate and as we move from first person of one of the characters to the next, and hear her side of the equation, we understand and more fully understand the relationship.
2. Each of the individual stories is fun and interesting if not a bit exaggerated. But this is what makes a fun story. Something very significant happens over the course of a year to each of the girls as their very unique and successful lives morph primarily through their choice of relationships with men. Each of the girls have this Latina girl baggage of growing up that affects their choices and make them do sometimes foolish things.
3. An additional genius of the book is to show how important these friendships really are and how each of the girl's lives is enhanced and aided by the other five girls and their opinions and the strength they offer to each other through some very difficult and trying times. It's clear that on their own, they may have faltered and could have made bad decisions. It reminds me somewhat of the friendships in "Sex and the City" series.
4. Each of the girls are from "Latina", yet totally different backgrounds and I think there was a lot of good information about how difficult it can be for people from different backgrounds to be approved of and successful in the American culture.
I think you'll find this to be a pretty fun and easy read full of mischief and fun, while still a pretty strong and insightful group of stories that fit very well together.
One of the dumbest books ever
June 18, 2008
This book gives latinas a bad name. Basically it's about a group of empty headed, useless, lazy, out of shape, and on the top of that boring girls. They are a disgrace to latina community. The book was the most boring one I've seen in ages. Yuck!
Loved it!
May 13, 2008
This book is like a delicious dessert - so quick & easy to read, yet also captivating and thoughtful. It's also such a pleasure to read about successful, intelligent Latina women. I highly recommend this.
Latina Waiting to Exhale
May 5, 2008
First, let me say I do not usually read these kinds of books. So to me, it was a little on the slow side. I really got it cause it was written by a Spanish author about spanish women...which I am. Good drama, with a lot of human...at least from what I read. Unfortunately, i did not finish the book.
|
