An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio

Cofer's related short stories of life in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in New Jersey are individually stellar. Each one is practically perfect. I enjoyed seeing characters recur through each other's eyes. Some are in first, some close third. There are many characters, however, and not one single thread that keeps a reader turning pages between stories. The final story would be cheesy in anyone else's hand, but in Cofer's, it worked. Themes: immigration, generations, sexuality, gender, violence, art, beauty, change, education, class, race.

I thoroughly enjoyed these short stories of the barrio, and the window they gave me onto an unfamiliar world. These first person narratives by the Puerto Rican teens of the El apartment building in Paterson, NJ beautifully illustrate the struggles of coming of age as a second or third generation Puerto Rican immigrant to the U.S. Many of these struggles would be familiar to any American teen—pressure to have sex with an older boy (i.e., Rita in Bad Influence), pressure to hide your intelligence or academic achievement (i.e., Arturo in Arturo’s Flight), pressure to be beautiful (i.e., Sandi in Beauty Lessons), pressure to join gangs or try drugs (i.e., Kenny Matoa in Matoa’s Mirror). These are all stories of young adult show more self-discovery. Fortunately most of these teens discover their inner strength of character, and find enough of themselves to resist the dangerous pressures, as with Doris in her observations of the shoplifting Yolanda in The One Who Watches, “She has problems that make her act crazy. Maybe some day she’ll work them out, but I have to start trying to figure out who I am and where I want to go before I can help anybody else.” Similarly, Anita narrowly escapes losing her virginity to the older, seductive, Italian Frank, and feels, “Safe within the four walls of her room where she can sort out her thoughts and try to discover what it is that she really wants.” in Home to El Building. This very small book covers a wide array of young adult themes, from the being embarrassed and ashamed of your parents and/or grandparents, to being cruel to those with disabilities, to confronting feelings about and discrimination against homosexuals. I particularly enjoyed the way in which the author weaved these stories together, reexamining parallel themes with related characters who appear first as minor characters in one narrative, then reappear as the protagonist in a later story. While Arturo discovers his love for Shakespearian tragedies because they have, “No happy endings like the ones in grammar school” in Arturo’s Flight, I found the endings to a majority of these stories to be satisfyingly happy. show less

Cofer's related short stories of life in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in New Jersey are individually stellar. Each one is practically perfect. I enjoyed seeing characters recur through each other's eyes. Some are in first, some close third. There are many characters, however, and not one single thread that keeps a reader turning pages between stories. The final story would be cheesy in anyone else's hand, but in Cofer's, it worked. Themes: immigration, generations, sexuality, gender, violence, art, beauty, change, education, class, race.

This is another very good book to celebrate yet another culture and their traditions. This books talks about the lives of different teenagers growing up including Rita who lives with her grandparents. They live in Puerto Rico and this will give my students a look into what that culture and place is like. There is also Luis who works at the junkyard with his Dad and Sandra who wants to become more connected with her Latino roots. I like the way it shows the point of view of many different teenagers and it helps give a glimpse into what we will study more in depth after reading it out loud- which is the hispanic culture.

This is a series of 12 stories about a group of Puerto Rican high school kids growing up in New Jersey.

I kept having flashbacks to Winesburg, Ohio as the stories referred to characters in other stories, but generally liked the book and the style. It’s interesting to see someone from the outside then the inside. I thought the style was a little uneven, and she could have used a better editor to tighten things up, and I didn’t always feel the characters were authentic teens, a comment I heard echoed in the amazon.com reviews. But some of the stories, "White Balloons" and "Arturo’s Flight" in particular, were very well crafted. I loved "Bad Influence", but it felt more like the beginning of a novel, since I was just getting into the show more characters when it ended. show less

A solidly mediocre collection of sentimental stories about teens growing up in a Puerto Rican neighborhood.

I kept wanting the short stories to add up to something big and meaningful, especially after I figured out that she was reusing characters between the short stories. They never did.

Using one or two of the short stories in a classroom or as part of a program might be done to good effect. The whole book, however, was a bit much to take.

An Island like you is a collection of twelve short stories told by Puerto Rican teens living in Patterson, New Jersey. Each story is told in a different voice, which gives us multiple prospectives and a fuller picture of the barrio. All but one story ends with the narrator learning an important life lesson, which gets a repetitive. Also, with the exception of Bad Influence and Matoa's mirror, the stories and the characters do not seem fully developed.