Customer Reviews

Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Sometimes you just want to read something that warms your heart. Something that is so rich and abundant with kindliness and warmth that you have to pause several times in your reading to ponder and absorb. The author must have been a very "nice boy." A nice boy with kaleidoscope vision and compassion.

Nothing fancy. Just plain home-cooking, albeit sometimes spicy, like the chilaquilas recipe in the book, which incidently, is wonderful!

I have never read a book about my hometown. This book took me back to my childhood days, and what it meant to grow up in a border town where everyone knew each other, everyone was friendly, there was no racism and you could sleep with the door unlocked, leave your keys in the car and it was safe. It also brought sadness at the same time, since Nogales is not the same Nogales of the fifties, sixties, seventies and even part of the eighties. It has grown extensively, has crime, and is no longer the little friendly town I once knew and loved.

Albert was at Nogales High School at the same time as I. He has truly written a BEAUTIFUL memoir of what my little childhood town was.I knew his family, his father married my husband and I and his mom pierced my ears. I was saddened by the fact that his father had passed away,(since we moved to culture shock California 10 years ago,I don't have much contact with Nogalians). But, believe me,you don't have to be from Nogales to enjoy this little marvel of a book.

Capirotada is a special book. Its simplicity moved me and the small stories that it told helped me feel how Nogales was in the 1950's and 60's. I usually find memoirs to be too orderly for literature and to self-serving for nonfiction. This one is different. Rios's memoir is beautiful literature.

Alberto Rios writes in the same way that a great abstract painter paints. He draws an outline and leaves blank spaces. He admits that he doesn't know things. The pieces that he puts in are enough so that you can accept the unknowns and the uncertainties of his life or yours and just see enough of the picture so you can feel how it was without knowing everything.

Capirotada is brilliantly written book that is a marvelous tribute to his parents, to Nogales, and to immigrants everywhere.

I read this book because of One Book Arizona's sponsorship. It was boring beyond words, and I can't imagine why it won the One Book award. The people who voted must have been students of the author because this was not a good book.

I have read this whole book and i can say that honestly the point of this book still alludes me i dont understand what drove him to write this book honestly his childhood stories witch made up the majority of this book bored me to tears they werent unique and had no merit to be put in a book. Im from arizona and i hate it when people talk about opening the boarder which is what the author likes to suddely put into the book, but it would have been so much more interesting if he had stayed on a subject like this. Instead he likes to jump from one childhood story to another going from age 15 to 4 to 20 to 12 etc. its really confusing. Personaly i think any book can be gleened for information of some kind but this book i think breaks that theory their is honestly no reason to read this book. Here ill sum up the point a little better(something this author should have done). Number one this book is horribly written it jumps from one point to another and he doesnt talk about how arizona is a caripotada(FYI i dont like my state being compared to food) which was his his main point enough in fact i dont think he says that until around page 80. Number 2 my main point is that he really didnt have a reason to write this in his life he never did anything extraordinary this is a lot like if some random guy decided to write a book about himself( which is what he did) he did nothing in his life to make it interesting its so annoying for me to i honestly do not understand what drove him to write this. My grandfather wrote a book to but at least he knew not to waste his time and publish it he just gave it to family members which is what this man should have done. Im sorry if you liked this but honestly the two problems are poor writing and NOTHING INTERESTING ABOUT IT THEIRS NO REASON FOR HIM TO HAVE WRITEN THIS BOOK.