Customer Reviews

Yo!

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this well-written and entertaining novel about Yolanda Garcia, a Dominican-American author and her family. This is the first Julia Alvarez book I've read, so I cannot compare it to her other work, but "Yo!" certainly is capable of standing on its own as a work of fiction. Nor did I feel that I ought to have read "How the Garcia Girls..." first to fully appreciate the novel(although I now would like to, since I enjoyed this book so much). I particularly liked the novel's Rashomon-like technique of telling Yo's story in bits and pieces, through the perspective of the people who have come in and out of her life. Each chapter is written from a different person's point of view (skillfully rendered) and casts a different light on Yo's character and life. We meet her nearest and dearest - sister, cousin, best friend - as well as more tangential characters - the caretaker on her uncle's estate, a former student. Each person tells us something about Yo's character and about events in her life, and just as in real life, the picture we get of Yo isn't always 100 percent consistent. My only criticism is that I felt that one of the novel's key themes --how an author mines her own life for material, and the effect this process has on those close to her -- wasn't fully realized in the book, taking a backseat to the portrait of Yo that is fleshed out chapter by chapter, person by person. But there's a lot to like in "Yo!": clear and vivid writing, great characterization, emotional impact, a fascinating immigration story, and cleverly shifting points of view.

The book is arranged in 16 chapters, each one told from the point of view of another character. Yolanda "Yo" Garcia, from the Dominican Republic, is central to each of these chapters, but always through the eyes of someone else.

There's the story of the maid in the Garcia household, Yo's professor at college who urges her get a doctorate, Yo's best woman friend who attends a therapy group with her, her landlady who is abused by her husband and a student whose story she plagiarizes. I felt the best chapters were the ones set in the Dominican Republic, where Yo returns each summer to write. There's the old woman who asks Yo to write a letter for her, there are the caretakers on the estate, there's the night watchman who can't read or write, and there's a chapter where one of Yo's suitors joins her in the family compound during the time that Yo's uncle is running for president of the country.

The book is the strongest when it contrasts the servant class with the privileged class. However, all the supporting characters are much better developed than the central character, Yo. Also, there weren't any real facts about the Dominican Republic so that I could see the story in context of history. And Yo herself never really emerged with the deep characterization the author intended. I wasn't drawn into her personality or her complexities. The book was fast pleasant reading, but I yearned for more depth.

Julia Alvarez' writing is characterized by her impeccable ability to create convincing characters whose travails and disappointments, joys and triumphs, the reader inevitably experiences as though he were an integral part of the book. In this, the sequel to How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Alvarez once again has taken us in a wild ride that reverberates with the sound of truth. Amazingly, we re-acquaint ourselves with the Garcia sisters, and especially with Yolanda (Yo), while at the same time we meet a whole new procession of characters who--at one time or another--have had an impact in Yo's life. This novel works so well because even though each chapter is told from a different point of view (so that at the end we're looking at a composite picture of Yolanda as seen by these narrators), Alvarez has successfully endowed each narrator with a distinctive, entirely credible voice. As usual, the stories are alternately poignant and hilarious, ponderous and lighthearted, yet regardless of the tone, Alvarez masterfully compels the reader to look at life in a different light, because love, death, failures, triumphs, and dreams is what human existence is all about. In short, a triumph!

Julia Alvarez is definitely a gifted writer, I have read before "In the time of the butterflies" and "In the name of Salome", both great books, and they were the whole reason I decided to buy "Yo", without knowing that I should have read first "How the Garcia sisters lost their accent", but anyway, this one is a great book, I really liked Yolanda García, I have to admit that in the preface I didn't like her, but as I kept on reading Yo started to grow in me...

I liked all the chapters; it is incredible how someone can touch through out an entire life so much people without even knowing. I think Yo was a good person, it seems to me that she just wanted to be accepted and loved by the family she adored and some reassurance that writing was her destiny, and her father gave her that by blessing her with both hands in her head in the last chapter.

"The Stalker" was the one chapter I didn't like; it took me days just to finish it... The others were amazing, specially "The wedding guests", I loved the way every invited guest gave their opinion about the others and talk about how their lives have being touched by Yo. Others chapters like "The father" were just a pleasure to read.

This is a very good book by a very good writer and I highly recommend it. Now I am going to buy her other novels, in particular "How the Garcia sisters..." and "Before we were free". It is always going to be a pleasure to read one of Julia Alvarez books...

This book was initially difficult for me to get into. It reads like several short stories and I had a hard time staying interested in the main character. It felt very disjointed. However, after I got to the middle of the book, got accustomed to the writing style and knew Yo a little better, I really started to enjoy her. I was teary at the end because I found that I really liked this person. I was touched by her and all that she had experienced through the eyes of her family and friends.

wow! I remember being blown away by "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent". Even then, Yolanda was my favorite character. It was easy to get right into this book-it was fast-reading, interesting, and definitely worthwhile. Being a resident of Vermont myself, I am amazed with Julia Alvarez' amazing writing talent. And although she is not nationally well-known, she is a name commonly heard around here. Yo! was a truly extraordinary book-a Hispanic version of "The Ya-Ya's", with a little added flair. I believe this is the type of book you would either HATE or LOVE-luckily, I loved it and recommed it to anyone who enjoys a good laugh, and a good read.

!Yo! by Julia Alvarez is a great book to read. I thought it was easy to follow because of the good sequence it had. Its characters were very diversified and were all connected through Yolanda Garcia, the main character of the book. This book will definitely make you want to read more of Alvarez' books. I also read In the time of Butterflies by the same author and I was equally excited when I finished reading it. I would definitely recommend this book.

I enjoyed Yo! more than I did How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent. Julia Alvarez does such a great job of developing each point of view on Yolanda Garcia, that by the end of the novel you feel as if you personally know this character. She brings to life her central character through the stories of those who were a part of her life and she does this so skilfully, with each character given its own writing style and voice, so it is as if each person was telling you a story about Yolanda and informing you about their involvement in her life. And no you do not need to read How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent to read this. Julia Alavrez fills the reader in on everything, although nothing much is missed. But, if you have read the Garcia Girls, you'll find yourself saying, "Oh I remember that!" and such. If you haven't read it, read it and you will see how each is inter-related. But, you do not need to read Garcia Girls to get this book, it stands alone. Definitely recommend all her books!

Initially our thoughts, about the book called ¡Yo! Are that it is an impressive novel. This novel represents the thoughts that people have about the girl name Yolanda Garcia. Therefore our opinions about the author Julia Alvarez way of writing the book ¡Yo! Are that the book's paragraph structure is challenging to understand. Julia Alvarez writes the book ¡Yo! Using many points of views from different people targeting Yolanda Garcia. To conclude our opinions about the book ¡Yo! We would like to say that the book is interesting yet challenging.

While I believe that Yo is a well-written and interesting novel, I still think the story itself is lacking a little in originality. The novel seems to want to produce itself in the same mold first created by earlier Latin American fiction writers, and I think this story could have been told without trying to imitate it in a magical-realism-lite style. Also, I think Yo portrays a character that has already been featured many times; as a girl who comes from a wealthy, landowning family that was supposedly forced to escape political persecution by coming to America... I guess to put it simply, the tale is interesting, but I find it hard to sympathize with Yo, and I find Alvarez's morality-heavy tone false at times. As a female of Latin-American descent myself, I honestly found it hard to relate to Yo, or any of the characters (despite Alvarez's attempts to display a diaspora of sorts of different types of females from a range of economic classes and personalties, etc).