When our class voted on which book to read, I admit, I didn’t vote to read How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. When looking through the three selections of books, I found that this book and The Joy Luck Club had the most appealing story line. I really liked how Julia Alvarez wrote about the topic of how the American culture and life changes a traditional family from the Dominican Republic. It provides interesting insight into their culture, and compares it to how different it is from the American culture.
Before I started to read the book, I asked my friends and classmates if they had read it, and I kept on getting similar opinions from them. They kept on telling me that the book was confusing and boring, so I had prepared myself for the worst, but when Sutherland read the story out loud in class, I found it quite the contrary. The first vignette wasn’t very confusing, and it was interesting, although I didn’t know anything about most of the characters, except the names of the four sisters.
I personally think that even though this book may be difficult to read, it helps me grow as a reader, because I have to read a few times to understand what is happening, and this is the most I have ever annotated any book. I used to always avoid annotating a book last year, and I would just read, then do something else. With this book though, I need to take time and take it all in, and slowly let it sink in before I can really understand what it means.
The fact that the book is in reverse chronological order makes it confusing and a pretty hard read. It’s hard to follow the story, and I am constantly confused by the characters and events that happen. I understand what happens, but I’m still confused about who is narrating the parts, and what happened to who.
I’m a bit worried and nervous about reading the rest of the book. Will the book begin to make more sense? Will Alvarez clarify events and characters more clearly? I’ll be able to finish Part II of the book by next Tuesday for sure, but understanding what I read is a whole other story.
Before I started to read the book, I asked my friends and classmates if they had read it, and I kept on getting similar opinions from them. They kept on telling me that the book was confusing and boring, so I had prepared myself for the worst, but when Sutherland read the story out loud in class, I found it quite the contrary. The first vignette wasn’t very confusing, and it was interesting, although I didn’t know anything about most of the characters, except the names of the four sisters.
I personally think that even though this book may be difficult to read, it helps me grow as a reader, because I have to read a few times to understand what is happening, and this is the most I have ever annotated any book. I used to always avoid annotating a book last year, and I would just read, then do something else. With this book though, I need to take time and take it all in, and slowly let it sink in before I can really understand what it means.
The fact that the book is in reverse chronological order makes it confusing and a pretty hard read. It’s hard to follow the story, and I am constantly confused by the characters and events that happen. I understand what happens, but I’m still confused about who is narrating the parts, and what happened to who.
I’m a bit worried and nervous about reading the rest of the book. Will the book begin to make more sense? Will Alvarez clarify events and characters more clearly? I’ll be able to finish Part II of the book by next Tuesday for sure, but understanding what I read is a whole other story.
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