How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Plume Contemporary Fiction) (original 1991; edition 1992)

I am so glad I discovered Julia Alvarez.
This inventively written and hugely entertaining novel is actually a series of interlinked stories about the four Garcia girls, who move to the United States from the Dominican Republic when their family has to flee from their father's political involvement in that country. The stories skip around in time and space: in some, the girls are adults with husbands and emotional breakdowns, in some they are visiting the Island as teenagers and reconnecting with family there, and in some they are newly arrived in America trying to navigate and negotiate this new plac as children. I was particularly fascinated with the idea of living in two languages. The third sister, Yolanda (possibly a stand-in for Alvarez herself?) is a poet who battles the different meanings of words in Spanish and English, especially as they concern love and relationships and her sense of her own identity. Identity is also hard-won when the characters are always called "the four girls," a nearly collective entity by their mother -- both parents are wonderfully drawn characters.
Highly recommended. ( )

Some parts were better than others. It would be good for someone who has no idea of life in the Dominican Republic and what it is like in America for Dominican Americans. ( )

Eh. I didn't really feel like they were exiled or in any extenuating circumstances. I never felt very connected to the characters either. Disappointed. ( )

one of the best books i read in college, made me read all of her others ( )

More than just a novel about immigrating (and returning home) -- this is a literary exploration of language and family and identity. ( )