This book was interesting. The writing is quite poetic; A couple of my favourite lines are, “A prayer that was swallowed up in the dark night of unnoticed things” (88) and the idea of being “silent with grief, though bursting with questions” (98). De La Parra wrote, “like poets, we discovered secret affinities and mysterious relations between the most diverse objects” (89), and this is certainly what she accomplishes. 

I found the sections of the novel dedicated to significant characters in the author’s past to be both enticing and cumbersome. It took no time at all to conclude that “Cousin Juancho—an unbound Larousse, with all the pages loose and half of them upside down” (46) is contending with severe ADHD, Vicente Cochocho “one of the tutelary friends of [their] childhood” (62) is tragically underappreciated, and Daniel who “worked zealously all through the week, and on Saturday afternoon presented to Papa a perfectly balanced, carefully doctored statement” (94) is a damn genius. Did these narratives need to stretch on for pages and pages? Likely not, but I get the feeling this novel is De La Parra’s invitation for readers to immerse themselves in this particular world and leave once they’ve gotten what they came for. I guess we’re all bound to garner something different from this tale. 

I also appreciated the narrator’s brief, albeit meaningful, exploration of the transference of insecurities from parent to child, as is exemplified in the statement, “thanks to the principles that Mama without realizing it had inculcated in me at the tender age of five, my honor, contrary to prevailing concepts, had its seat in my hair and in no other part of my person” (37). It’s at times baffling what remains ingrained in us from childhood. If you treat a child as if their hair is their single most important quality/feature, obviously they’re going to internalise it. Mama places so much weight in the appearance/illusion of her daughter’s hair, it’s as if the hair is its own character in both the novel and in the narrator’s mind. 

De La Parra, or at least the translator, employs extremely long sentences (eg. “Those which remained in their customary place, on an occasional head, city-fashion—or as in the case of Violeta so she could have her hands free—such a one, perched on a head, I repeat, immediately lost its center of gravity” [107]) I got lost in frequently. However, I enjoyed the playfulness of her writing, such as “the republic of the cows” (91) and the names for said cows (eg. Sad Widow, Bleeding Heart, Never Leave Me… [92]). Moreover, the tumultuous themes of sisterhood are both real and relatable, though the ending seemed a little abrupt. What do you think the author was trying to communicate through the conclusion of the novel? Because, honestly, I’m stumped.