Ordinary Girls
A Memoir
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3.8 • 9 Ratings
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
One of the Must-Read Books of 2019 According to O: The Oprah Magazine * Time * Bustle * Electric Literature * Publishers Weekly * The Millions * The Week * Good Housekeeping
“There is more life packed on each page of Ordinary Girls than some lives hold in a lifetime.” —Julia Alvarez
In this searing memoir, Jaquira Díaz writes fiercely and eloquently of her challenging girlhood and triumphant coming of age.
While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Díaz found herself caught between extremes. As her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was supported by the love of her friends. As she longed for a family and home, her life was upended by violence. As she celebrated her Puerto Rican culture, she couldn’t find support for her burgeoning sexual identity. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico’s history of colonialism, every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Díaz writes with raw and refreshing honesty, triumphantly mapping a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be.
Reminiscent of Tara Westover’s Educated, Kiese Laymon’s Heavy, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club, and Terese Marie Mailhot’s Heart Berries, Jaquira Díaz’s memoir provides a vivid portrait of a life lived in (and beyond) the borders of Puerto Rico and its complicated history—and reads as electrically as a novel.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Jaquira Díaz’s memoir pairs terror and triumph in a guided tour through her life. In her youth, Diaz dealt with a lot. Growing up in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, she bounced between housing projects and sketchy apartments. Her father was dealing coke and sleeping around, and her mother was living with schizophrenia. Surrounded by violence and terrified to come out as queer, Díaz eventually faced substance abuse, a juvie stretch, sexual assault, and more. But she drew spiritual sustenance from her grandmother and found a family among her friends: “wild girls” just as troubled as she was. Díaz’s gift for narrative flow makes her prose feel simultaneously like a poem, a song, and a dream, filled with vivid details of dancing to Missy Elliott and feeling alienated from her blonde-haired Barbie dolls. She takes things to another level by including bits of the Puerto Rican history that informed her upbringing. Ordinary Girls proves there’s promise even in perilous times.
Customer Reviews
Great Read!
This was great read. I enjoyed every bit of it. So powerful and inspiring.