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Book

Ordinary girls : a memoir

Call Numbers

  • 921 D5425 (CEN, OSH)
  • 921 D5425 TEEN (CEN)

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Edition

First edition.

Publication Information

Chapel Hill, North Carolina : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2019.

Physical Description

321 pages ; 22 cm

Summary

While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Jaquira Díaz found herself caught between extremes: as her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was surrounded by the love of her friends; as she longed for a family and home, she found instead a life upended by violence. 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 triumphantly maps a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be.

Contents

  • Girl hood
  • Origin story
  • El caserío
  • La otra
  • Home is a place
  • Monster story
  • Candy girl
  • Ordinary girls
  • Fourteen, or how to be a juvenile delinquent
  • Girls, monsters
  • Beach city
  • Battle stations
  • Secrets
  • Mother, mercy
  • Returning
  • Ordinary girls.

Subjects