Love War Stories

May 28, 2018
Rodriguez’s uneven debut introduces readers to a cast of characters who range from unhinged aunts to scholarship students at a private New York City high school to legendary Puerto Rican poet and activist Julia de Burgos. Rodriguez’s characters struggle with, covet, and seek to subvert their familial and cultural legacies of suffering from love. In the collection’s most structurally interesting story, “Holyoke, Mass.: An Ethnography,” an anonymous narrator responds to the publication of an ethnographic account of her hometown by providing her own, truer version: interweaving the story of Veronica, a girl featured in the ethnography, with the cultural and industrial history of Holyoke. However, though ambitious, the conceit isn’t carried all the way through—as a result, the two strands don’t come together convincingly. The two standout stories are “Summer of Nene,” which fully inhabits the voice of a young Puerto Rican boy dealing with his burgeoning sexuality, including an affair with his chronically ill male friend, as well as interest from the hottest girl in his class; and “The Belindas,” in which Belinda comes face-to-face again with the charming, handsome, and volatile ex-boyfriend with whom she shares a violent past that has completely altered her life and yet left his untouched. Other stories feel underdeveloped, and though the collection is only somewhat successful as a whole, Rodriguez’s best stories are both heartbreaking and insightful.

August 1, 2018

Love and war indeed. In the opening story of this promising debut collection chronicling the lives of Puerto Rican girls, Noelia eagerly anticipates her quinceañero but worries that the festivities will be disrupted by her aunt Lola, the butt of town jokes because she still awaits the man who abandoned her. Starry-eyed Noelia wants the joyous glitter of the event, Lola knows the heartbreak becoming a woman means, and the two are on a collision course that will change both their lives. In "Holyoke, Mass.: An Enthography," set in a Massachusetts town that has always attracted immigrants, most recently Puerto Ricans, tough, sexy 15-year-old Veronica struggles to hold onto her hard-earned popularity and equally hard-earned boyfriend. But her world is as cutthroat competitive as Wall Street, and her narrative ends in blood and tears. Elsewhere, young people deal with family and friends, sexual desire and former lovers, creating the portrait of a community. VERDICT The stories here can feel a little rough or imperfectly developed, but this reviewer kept returning to them for their freshness, urgency, and sheer heart. Good for YA and adult readers alike.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.