Every year, Ceyala "Lala" Reyes' family--aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and Lala's six older brothers--packs up three cars and, in a wild ride, drive from Chicago to the Little Grandfather and Awful Grandmother's house in Mexico City for the summer. Struggling to find a voice above the boom of her brothers and to understand her place on this side of the border and that, Lala is a shrewd observer of family life. But when she starts telling the Awful Grandmother's life story, seeking clues to how she got to be so awful, grandmother accuses Lala of exaggerating. Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwind exploration of storytelling, lies, and life. Like the cherished rebozo, or shawl, that has been passed down through generations of Reyes women, Caramelo is alive with the vibrations of history, family, and love.
Caramelo, Sandra Cisneros's first novel since her celebrated The House on Mango Street, weaves a large yet intricate pattern, much like the decorative fringe on a rebozo, the traditional Mexican shawl. Through the eyes of young Celaya, or Lala, the Reyes family saga twists and turns over three generations of truths, half-truths, and outright lies. And, like Celaya's grandmother's prized caramelo (striped) rebozo, so is "the universe a cloth, and all humanity interwoven.... Pull one string and the whole thing comes undone." The Reyes clan, from Awful Grandmother Soledad and her favorite son Inocencio to Celaya, follow their destinies from Mexico City to the U.S. armed forces, jobs upholstering furniture, and to Chicago and San Antonio. Celaya gathers and retells, in over 80 chapters, the stories that reinforce her family's, and subsequently her own, identity as they travel between the U.S.-Mexican border and within the United States. Rich with sensory descriptions and animated conversations and peppered with Mexican cultural and historical details, this novel can hardly contain itself. Also an acclaimed poet, Cisneros writes fiercely and thoroughly, and her characters enter and exit the page with uncommon humanity. Although the book is long--over 400 pages plus a relevant U.S.-Mexico chronology--in many ways it's not long enough. The world of the 20th-century Mexican family, and of the Reyeses in particular, is as complicated, timeless, and satisfying as our own family stories. --Emily Russin
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Spanish Literature related-English version:
Very interesting book if you are looking for Mexican-American diversity. It reads like a 'reality show' on TV; coming of age of an adolescent Mexican-American living in Chicago. If you live it, as a bicultural person, you would be bored...otherwise it is inciteful. This was a homework assignment for a university course, otherwise I would not have chosen it.
The MBC Abbreviated Review:
For us, the San Antonians, the book was nostalgic and chewy, full of life, delicious, and bitter-sweet. So was the same for many other Mexican-Americans who live in Texas. The book presented an honest reflections, life and souls of an important slice of American population; and more importantly, peoples of our own town. The voice, the blocks of words full of local idiom, and Mexican proverbs were exhilarating. The plot was a story of the awful grandmother but more so mini tales of individual characters who... more info
beautiful!:
This is one of the most beautiful books I have read in a long time. It is all about family and weaving together and clashing of two cultures. You will love it.
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