Splitting the Difference

May 20, 2013
Expanded from her blog, Rodriguez's memoir tells the frenetic story of a woman turning grief into courage. It begins in the aftermath of her husband's fatal heart attack: the minutia of planning the funeral, her struggles with quotidian inconveniences and encounters with Alberto's personal effects, and the process of overcoming grief and guilt. Blogospheric immediacy charges the book's pages. She lays her experiences bare in cathartic prose at once touching and shockingly stark, and she delves deep and candidly into her past and present traumas: readers are privy to memories of her husband, her history of unfulfilling relationships, trips abroad with in-laws to scatter ashes, tell-all foibles of dating and sleeping around, the death of her brother in a car accident, an unexpected pregnancy during high school and the difficult decision to give her daughter up for adoption. As she parses buried emotional turmoil, Rodriguez convalesces on the page—the prose itself loosens, particularly during the stirring moment of reconnection with her biological daughter. Ultimately, Rodriguez eschews the maudlin, opting instead for the gripping, real work of recovery.