Yo! Book

"What did he and this lady think? That money could buy the only thing the poor could have for free, their own children?" (255)

Emerging as an actual very bright, very original, very nostalgi-romanti-storic. A bona fide portrait of a woman with many haters and lovers, a writer one easily begins to think is Alvarez herself. (Also, that she's written--to my knowledge, since I still have some exploring of her entire body of work--at least 3 novels about 4 sisters, about the table that requires sturdy legs as much as a good novel necessitates glimmers of humor and pathos, and original voices all masters of their section, all ingeniously (and aptly) titled. This book is about what happens when instead of quiet and complacent angels, the Garcia sisters become fiery and disobedient: a theme I've encountered in her two books Ive read previously, In the Time of the Butterflies and her most recent Afterlife.This is up there with "Olive Kitteridge", but strikes louder with me as I knew a couple of fabulous people from the DR whose voice I remember upon reading this.

When the characters return in a different characters anecdote, or section, or chapter, it truly is a joyous occasion. The title of the novel is insistent upon itself, it is an ode to the sister (or it could be us, ME=YO). The inverted exclamation point is uniquely Spanish; it is also a greeting between two friends. Love her or hate her, Yolanda Garcia sure does make an impression--and yet has no time of her own in the narrative: splashes, impressions,