Customer Reviews

Finding Miracles

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

 

 

Julie Alvarez's ("How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent") newest novel "Finding Miracles" is the story of Milly Milagros Kaufman, a typical all-American, half-Jewish high schooler with a not-so-typical secret: Milly was adopted as an infant from a war-torn Latin American country, where her adopted parents were serving in the Peace Corps. Milly has managed to successfully keep this info from her best friend Em, friends Jake and Dylan, and the community at large, because thinking about her sickly beginnings at an orphanage dredged up too many painful questions about why she was abandoned at the doorstep, who her birth parents may have been and if they "disappeared" during the dictatorship.

Milly is forced to confront her past when Pablo Bolívar joins her grade at high school. Pablo and his parents are refugees from Milly's home country (which is never named). One of his uncles was murdered, one of his brothers is a prisoner, and the other a revolutionary. Pablo asks Milly to help him with English in exchange for practicing Spanish, and one day makes a comment that changes Milly's life: he tells her that her eyes look like those of the mountain village Los Luceros. Also, Milly overhears an angry family discussion in which her unhappy grandmother Happy effectively writes her out of her will as she is not a "blood" relation.

Milly begins to slowly examine her feelings by confronting "The Box," a mahogany box containing her adoption papers, naturalization papers, two locks of hair (one light, one dark), a coin, and several photos, and in a brave speech running for a class office, tells the story of her adoption to the school at large. The second half of the novel chronicles Milly's journey to her homeland. When Milly's home country is freed from tyranny and democracy is slowly put into place, she takes up Mrs. Bolívar's invitation to visit, searching for traces of her shadowy past. Milly and Paco become more than just friends, bonded by the shared sadness of having lost loved ones in the war.

The novel does not have a "fairy tale" ending where everything works out perfectly, but the ending provided a satisfying conclusion to Milly's journey. Realistically written and beautifully described, Alvarez captures a girl torn between cultures, languages, and her past, and how Milly, now Milagros, makes all the pieces fit.

I read this book because my son had to read it as a summer required book for his English class. He got to page 40 or so and couldn't go further. Like the main character, Milly, he is adopted from a South American country. He found it totally unbelievable that Pablo (the new refugee student) and Milly would become so entwined just because she was born in his native country. I decided to read it myself and I totally understand his disconnect with this book. Vermont is not most of urban America (where we live), so it is hard for him to imagine the fascination with someone who is "different" or a "refugee"---we live amongst many of them---so this just doesn't seem like a big deal. Milly also seemed to make her adoption a secret to many people---it was not clear exactly why she did that when adoption, blended families, etc. are so common and hardly noticed these days. My son commented that the book will make people who are not adopted think that adopted people all have identity crises.

My own thoughts about the book (being a Spanish speaker who has traveled in Latin America) are that the author used just about every possible Latin American history detail and adoption cliche---disappearances, dictator installed by CIA, people pushed from helicopters, curfews, orphanages, baskets with babies left places, overwhelming "need" to find birthparents, right wing death squads, rich landowners, wise old blind lady who lives on a hill with a mute whose tongue was cut out by right wing extremists, etc. etc. ] It gets to be a lot of breadth, but no depth. Not naming a country left it open for using every historical element of all countries. The whole thing is pretty sappy and unbelievable (and maybe that makes it great for teenage girls), but don't read this book if you are a well adjusted teenage boy or an adult who is not trying to learn how to write a book like this.

Finding Miracles is a refreshingly original story.
This is the first text that I have read from Alverez and I enjoyed the infussion of spanish in the text and the unpredictable plot. The characters are on the edge of normal but believable. Alvarez takes into account all of the culturaly diverse traits of each character.
The reason I rated the book 4 statrs instead of 5 is that I feel that there are alot of loose ends at the end of the book. Maybe there could be another book.
Joi

Prior to reading "Finding Miracles" I had been reading a story similar to it (Called "Somebody's daughter") that followed the same genre but instead of it being about a Spanish (Hispanic, whatever) girl, it was about a Korean girl (who wasn't looking for her parents, but was wondering what her native country was like.) It `twas boring. Getting off that subject, I have to say that I enjoyed "Finding Miracles" very much. Written in 1ST -Person, I could really understand the emotions of the main character Milly Kaufman and her so-called struggle to learn what little she knew of her past and more when she traveled to her best friend's (Pablo) country despite the objections her family (especially her sister, Kate, who apparently was born in Pablo's country too) to her going.



The only problems I had with this story was the fact that Milly was such a cry-baby in this story; If her parents got angry at her, she would start crying while making up an excuse for herself at the same time (that was just unbelievable in terms of normal teenage reactions. It felt like she was trying to get her parents not to punish her).



And if she started sobbing about something -- mostly her native country she wanted to go to - everyone in her family - excluding her grandmother and other distant relatives- started crying. How unrealistic can you get with drama? If I started crying about something trivial like that, I declare my parents would tell me to hush up about it. All in all "Finding Miracles" was not a bad story. I enjoyed it very much as I have said before. (July 23d, 2005)

Finding Miracles by Julia Alvarez is about a teenage girl named Milly, who lives in Vermont in the United States of America. Throughout the book I learned about Milly's past and current struggles. The book starts off with Julia Alvarez allowing you to become familiar with the characters' personalities. Milly seems like an average teenage girl until you find out she was adopted as a baby when her parents saw her at an orphanage when they were in the Peace Corps. She keeps this information a secret from everyone at school.

Then one day a boy named Pablo comes to her school. After a while Pablo and Milly's families become friends. You learn that Pablo and his family escaped the country they are from because they were being persecuted by the government. After getting to know Pablo's family, Milly and her family discover Milly was adopted from the same country Pablo is from. This helps Milly accept and tell her peers about her adoption. Finally, Milly joins Pablo and his family on a trip back to their country to help her understand where she is from, and learn more about her adoption.

I really liked this book, because there is lots of foreshadowing, to keep the reader guessing what will happen next. One example is when Pablo says to Milly, "These people from Los Luceros, they all have eyes like yours." This is foreshadowing that Milly may be from Los Luceros, which is located in the country she is from. There is also a romance aspect to the novel. Milly describes Pablo as "He was good-looking." The romance that develops between Pablo and Milly is fun to read and picture mentally. This book can appeal to all different types of readers because it has many different parts to it, like adventure, romance, and is about finding and coming to terms with who you are.

Since there are different parts of the book I would recommend it to girls in grades 7,8, and 9 because they can most relate to Milly, and what she is going through in terms of identity, which is a gigantic part of this novel.

This book illustrates how children can struggle with adoption and that they can feel out of place. It also brings attention to identity. A lot of children go through a phase trying to find out who they are, like Milly does. Lots of teenagers will be able to relate to Milly's character because of her struggles.

I liked to read the book Finding Miracles by Julia Alvarez because it was easy to read and understand.I recommend this book to students that english is their second language and student that take ESL. I think this book is good for ESL students that are starting reading books in english for the first time.I recommend this book to teenagers who were adopted since they were little and wondering where is their parents.Milly Kaufman,main character,could be a comfort for teenagers who were adopted because in this book they may find some problems they goes through.

An enchanting book that all ages will have a good laugh at. When you first look at it...it looks like another sad story, but it has a beautiful adventure under that. Anyone who has a good sonce of humor and loves happy love storys will love this.