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Ordinary Girls: Final thoughts and comments

Finishing Ordinary Girls was a bit bittersweet. 

I guess even if I told myself I didn’t have any expectations, I was still waiting for a fairytale ending. I thought the book was great, something I would have not picked out from the shelf on my own, but I did enjoy it. 

At times, it was hard to read. Not in the way that I couldn’t understand it, but there was so much information to process, a lot was going on in a short amount of time and a lot of touchy subjects.

I have never read a memoir before, so I don’t know if it is typical or just Diaz’s writing style, but I feel like I was reading a diary, but not in the correct order. The subtitles helped to put in context her stories, but the jumping around was confusing at times. The book felt personal, as if she was talking directly to me, which I liked.

As mentioned before, I enjoyed the book. 10/10 would recommend, and I understand why it got so many raving reviews. 

Ordinary Girl Section 1 summary

The book “Ordinary Girls” is about Jaquira Diaz life story of her growing up with her family in Puerto Rico and moving to Miami beach as her family and teen life begins to crumple. The first chapter is about Jaquira childhood in Puerto Rico, she talks about how her mother works hard in a factory and her father study in University of College, but in order to support his family he sells drugs (properly cocaine). She also has a brother name Anthony, he was sacred of his mother since she almost had a burst of anger at him (which she has schizophrenia). As a result he lives with his grandma ( the father mother). And she has a little sister named Alaina. Jaquira was always reliant on her father since he thought her to read books. One day a new neighbor came to the neighborhood, this caused Diaz mother to go on a outburst when she suspects her husband cheating on her. They both always argue about the mother accusing the father of cheating. Then mercy (the mother, mother and grandma of Jaquira) showed up in her life and explain that Jaquira mother run away from how and threaten to call the cops since her mother was under age (she was a high school student and the father was an adult) which the father didn’t realize she was under age. Mercy accepted her daughter marriage so their fine with each other, accept that mercy is a racist since she doesn’t like her two granddaughters since their black. Mercy always says that Jaquira “brother got lucky, he turned out like me.” Diaz, 50). It tells on how Mercy is not a good grandma since she wanted light/white skin grandkids instead of black grandkids and explains on why she endorse Anthony except for Jaquira Alaina. One day the father bought a like a fancy apartment for his family to live but it caused the family trouble since it brought a gang to threaten the family if the father didn’t had the money for them. The father gave them money and they left. This made the family keep on moving until they decided to move to Miami Beach to get away from the past. They lived in a small apartment and Diaz parents got a divorce since her mother hit her father which lead the father to finally leave her. This made her mother sad since he meant everything to her and Jaquira was sad that she lost a person that inspired her to read books and be a creative person. I

like they story since it shows on the personal struggle that Juquira faced in her childhood. It shows on how people could struggle on supporting family, how it feels like to be discriminated by appearance and the how Jaquira childhood is tragic. It brings me the question on why do people make a big deal over skin color, like their are a person and skin tone doesn’t matter, people are beautiful just the way their are weather in the inside or outside.