Garcia Girls Final

The book

The Garcia Girls Lost their Accent

by Julia Alverez is about four sisters and how their lives evolved into the lives they lived to the lives they are currently living. The book is written in reverse chronological order, as confusing as that may seem, presumably, it is what made the book a topic of intrest for schools to expose their students to. In the beginning, she gave us characters that I personally didn't care for or feel any connection to and her writing gave an understanding of each personality we experienced as readers and brought emotion to the audience. Finding out who each girl was and how they got there was quite interesting. The book also did not have an ending, it was a loop. It started and ended with the same emotion and almsot same place in time. Alverez's style is unique to what I am used to for school reading material. I think the reason we were supposed to read this was not to find meaning in the book and shed light on topic that is yet to be discovered, I think it was more about writing. Alverez contorted her readers to think exactly what she wanted the to, essentially she mind effed us to be her puppets and I respect the hell out of her for it. To me it seemed like she didn't care if her audience liked it or not, in any circumstance, she seemed to have the last laugh.

In the book

The Garcia Girls Lost their Accent

by Julia Alverez,it almost seemed like a diary because of the personality she brought to the book. She seemed very secretive and open about what she wrote so I still can't tell if it's a therapy or if it's just a story. With each character she brought the most intimate stories that would either scar a child forever or shape who they would become. I must admit, I couldn't put the idea of sexual abuse out of mind. Sex was the underlying theme for the entire book, in every chapter and every story there was something involving sex. If it was sleeping with a married man to proving that you are a lady to your cousin to having pornographic pictures that the family gardener looked at. The sexual abuse theme seemed to be true for Yolanda and Sophia, and had the biggest impact on their lives. Yolanda's seemed to effect her later in life causing her to make decisions that were "vulgar" and not socially acceptable. Sophia on the other hand, she was effected throughout her life. The first symptoms of her inappropriate showed with her relationship with her father. She expressed and attraction that should have still been foreign to her, especially to her father.

Sophia was a character of intrest for me. Sofia is the youngest daughter, in the beginning she was a girl who seemed to have inappropriate feelings towards her father, later, as she got older, she had constant boyfriends and ran off with a man named Otto from Germany-against her fathers wishes which created a tense and hostile relationship with him. After a failed relationship with a Dominican boyfriend that seemed to be the turning point where she finally embraced American attitudes toward sexual relationships. She challenges all sexual double standards that she finds in Dominican culture and claims independence. When she had her children it seems to be the ice breaker for her and her father, but at his birthday party she flaunts her sexuality and his powerlessness to control it by kissing his ear in a particularly seductive way brining up the inappropriate relationship once more. Later in the book it is discovered that because of her age, she hardly has any memories of the Dominican Republic, but for some reason she does remember the Haitian maid, Chucha, who performed voodoo spells and slept in a coffin.

Overall this story fascinated me, not necessarily for the content but for Alverez. Not many people will admit to it, but she did control the entire book. She used her influence to shape her audience views. Even if no one believes this, just having that feeling of confusion at the end of the book when it just starts at the beginning is just Alverez having control over you. I found this extremely interesting and ended up wanting to meet her for a better understanding of the book and learn how she got the audience to fall under her spell.