Ordinary Girls

I didn't think this was very good. Diaz' story is super compelling - growing up in Puerto Rico and immigrating to Miami as a child, a dangerously mentally ill mother, a violent brother. and struggles with her own depression. I think she'd have been better served by writing about the same material in a long-form essay and not a book. The book is very repetitive and after a while, everything begins to run together. something about the order of the telling also flattened out the inherent drama of the material - when she runs into her mother - homeless and sick - on the beach three-quarters of the way through, I was like - eh, ok, I've already heard about this, instead of feeling the shock that I should have had felt the narrative been constructed in a different way.

I feel like Diaz was under-served by her editor.

Also, I didn't understand how someone who identifies as queer never writes about her sexual relationships with women, except very peripherally.

Thanks to Library Thing for the Early Reviewers copy.