!Yo!
by Julia Alvarez

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Book Reviews of !Yo!

Book Review: !Yo! By Julia Alvarez
Summary: 5 Stars

Yolanda Garcia is from the Dominican Republic and her family moves to the United States when she is a young girl. She is one of four daughters. Her sisters were Sandi, Fifi, and Carla. Their parents, Carlos and Laura Garcia, decided to flee from the Dominican Republic to get away from the terrible island that they had called home. Many terrible things occurred on the island; homes raided, people taken from their homes, torture chambers, electric prods, attacks by dogs, and more. They wanted to gain freedom and raise their daughters without terror.

There are several chapters in this book, each is from a different character's view point. Throughout the changing view points, the story of Yo's life is told. Yo wants to be a writer when she grows older, but her family does not appreciate her story telling. Yo has several boyfriends throughout her life before finding the right man, which was her third and final husband, Douglas Manley. She spent every summer at a relative's mountain home in the Dominican Republic, where she was friends with the caretakers and gave a job to a poor farmer as the night watchman. She taught a young man how to use his writing skills to create interesting stories while she was a college professor. Yo helped her landlady to realize that the only way of saving her family from her abusive husband was to force him to move out of the house. She also was able to make her father understand that writing and telling stories was her destiny.

I enjoyed this book and am glad that I was exposed to a different style of writing. I have never read a book with more than one view point and I believe that it is an interesting way to tell a story. This book was humorous, yet sad, and turned out to be an excellent reading experience. I would recommend this book to other people. It contained information about culture, although not a detailed description and it helped me to understand what immigrants experience when they move to the United States.

In conclusion, I believe that this assignment was better than I had ever expected. I agree with the Chicago Tribune that this book was "Exhilarating". I think that others would agree with me that this was a great book. So if you are looking for a good book, I suggest !Yo! By Julia Alvarez. You will not be disappointed.

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