When I Was Puerto Rican

Puerto Rico. This is primarily a memoir of a Puerto Rican childhood. Santiago gives a satisfying account of daily life with its occasional dramatic, punctuating events. She uses description well to imbue the landscape with emotional resonance. The New York section was thinner and seemed rushed. It would have benefited from an additional 20% of the page count added to allow more showing and less telling. ( )

A beautifully written memoir. I like Ms. Santiago's style- it's very everyday and conversational. It reminds me of listening to my father-in-law's stories of growing up in Puerto Rico as a young boy. As another reviewer pointed out, very few lives naturally have the story arc that a well-crafted novel would generally have, so the memoir is episodic and a little scatter-brained, but I think that this is not a bad thing. I think it fits, seeing as how this is a book about the first thirteen or fourteen years of Ms. Santiago's life, and many people do not have solid memories of their childhood- my memories of my own childhood are also scattered. I tend to only remember the really big, earth-shaking things. That seems to be true for a lot of people. Memories in general tend to be staccato bursts, and I think this is a memoir that illustrates that perfectly. It's honest, written conversationally, and casual, like a favorite auntie telling stories. It is not pretentious. It's not written with lots of gigantic words to impress the reader. It's very down-to-earth, and it's wonderful. ( )

This is a nicely written memoir of the author's childhood in the Puerto Rico of the 1950s—Santiago can write vividly and lucidly. Unfortunately, the subject matter seemed to hamper the book a little—no one's life has a narrative arc the way that a novel does, so things are of necessity somewhat episodic, and as she is a young child for most of the book, her experiences are mostly passive ones, caused by the actions of other people. I was also a little irked by the narrative device of scattering some Spanish words and phrases throughout the text—with the exception of those which are genuinely untranslatable, I don't see the need for it. That device always seems a cheap way of creating an aura of exoticism. Still, enjoyable—perhaps best suited for a YA audience and/or one with a connection to Puerto Rico. ( )

I love this book & story. It really was a bit of an eye-opener to what it was like growing up Hispanic during that era. ( )

A very sensory book. Santiago layers themes with stories and recurring images that deepened my pleasure in and feeling for this book. Very physical use of detail, and a successful and authoritative writing of the child's experiences while keeping the woman's reflection on her experiences. Beautiful. ( )