Names on a Map Book

I'm bummed that I missed book club's discussion about this (I'd finished the book in the nick of time and everything!). In the end: 4 stars for the themes, 2 stars for the prose. Which is a shame, because I loved Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which was a straightforward, touching, heartfelt LGBTQ YA where… things actually happened.

In comparison, I suppose this one is best described as ~*~Literary Fiction~*~ (heavy, heavy emphasis on the literary). Alire Sáenz's prose is nice sometimes, but it's frankly too full of itself here. He keeps oscillating between first-, second-, and third-person narration, erratically. That sort of POV switch needs to be for a specific purpose, and have some rules (The Fifth Season is a perfect example of this, where the choice of POV instantly anchors you and tells you which timeline/character you're following, and there are narrative reasons justifying it as well). But here, instead, there's no rhyme nor reason nor consistency to which voice is being used. And even when it was in first-person, I couldn't tell you the difference between the voices of Lourdes, Gustavo, Xochil, or Charlie ' they all blended together in exactly the same kind of intellectual, dreamy, thoughtful vibe.

Thematically, the book is an extension of some themes touched on in Aristotle & Dante and which are really far up my alley: father/son relationships, masculinity, and war, all of which is #juliebait galore. I loved the dynamic of the Espejo family, the close-knit twins, the too-soft younger brother, the watchful mother keeping them all together.

However! Practically nothing happens! I could summarise the entirety of the plot in two sentences. And with that in mind, there's also the extreme problem that the blurb literally SPOILS THE ENDING OF THE BOOK. What little there is was already spoiled for me, because the blurb implies that there's more to come, but there ain't.

You could perhaps argue that the ending doesn't matter, and what's important is the Journey™ instead… but the prose grated on my nerves enough that the journey wasn't super-enjoyable either.

All of which sounds super harsh. There were things I very much liked about it, certain stray moments; the daughter Xochil and her mother Lourdes are the strongest, most sensible characters in the book and I adored them. But compared to the other novel I've read by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (which I gave 5 stars!), this was largely a disappointment.

A couple favourite quotes, though ' which are actually not representative at all because they're all from the soldier POVs set in Vietnam:
They will tear us down, minute by minute, hour by hour, pull up by pull up, push-up by push-up, squat thrust by squat thrust. Our minds and bodies will be transformed. I won't be me anymore. I'll be part of a team. The team will be what matters.

The team will be the only country you love. You will fight for them. If they live, you live.

I understood all this. From the start, I understood everything. I fucking knew I was going to learn to fight. And I was going to live. This was my war. Mine.

It all made perfect sense.

***

I missed my family on Sundays. Missed them like hell. And at basic training, you know I got into this thing of doing busy work, while about half the guys went to do their church thing. You know, Sunday mornings, we'd clean our guns one more fucking time, shine our shoes another fucking time, do all that fucking busy work they had us doing. Your boots could never be too shiny. Your gun could never be too clean. In the Marines, when you train, if you're awake, then you're doing something. No such thing as doing nothing.

You know what a vacation was? It was having the time to smoke a fucking cigarette. It was having the time to listen to some jackass tell a joke you'd already heard.

***

You know, when I was in Nam, all my dreams were of home.

When I came home, all my dreams were of war.

I cannot say enough times how much I love this author. He is now 3 for 3 for the books I have read of his. Each one is in a different style with a completely different storyline, the only link being they are all set in El Paso, Texas and involve Hispanic families.

The character development in this novel was as superb as ever from this author and, again, I could relate very closely to characters that had absolutely nothing in common with me or my life, ever!

He takes a tragic situation but does not overly glamourise or over dramatize what must have happened to a large number of families of that time.

Despite each chapter being from a different characters voice and each one being of a random length, some very long others just a few sentences, it was very easy to follow each persons story.

If you have not read any of this authors books, please just pick any one up, I am sure it will not disappoint. 5 out of 5.