Drown

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Beautifully written book. My High-school English teacher assigned this book to read for class. I absolutely fell in love. Great choice!

These stories are compelling from the beginning. I kept thinking of people I know from the Dominican neighborhoods in NYC where I live and work and from the Puerto Rican family into which I married many years ago. These stories so thoroughly delve into the inner lives of its characters. Mr. Diaz knows how to convey through action and circumstance and dynamics between characters what few words could do as effectively. You sense what they feel and what they think rather than learn about it through dialogue or inner speech in the stories. I came to the stories with a deep respect for the people of the Dominican diaspora and also very familiar with the experience of Puerto Ricans and still felt a sense of awe that only comes with opening a box of something completely unknown and looking inside to see what's in it. I have since read both the Spanish and English versions of Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar and was blown away by the creativity that drove the temporal aspects of the novel, as well as its intriguing characters who defy definitions so often oversimplified and stereotyped in the United States, not to mention the expertise of the management of the mixing of English and Spanish in each of the versions. Can't wait for more! Juliet Luther