Rivera II

   I just read the last post on the class blog, and had to laugh out loud. I too am on my way out to the VIFF, although not to see the film on border relations. Perhaps it would have been fitting though...

  Finishing the Rivera book was a different experience than with most novels, there is little conclusive about the ending. Overall, I think that this is fitting with the nature of the text, having little chronological narrative quality. It did, however, set a united tone with connecting the individual stories around common themes. 

  Since I finished the book, I went on to read 'How the García Girls Lost Their Accents' by Julia Alvarez. Interestingly, both of these novels employ an unorthodox method of story telling. In Rivera's text, the viewpoint remains from that of a young boy but the chronology is disordered. In contrast, Alvarez writes from a number of perspectives but the order remains consistently reverse. 

   Personally, I preferred Alvarez's style over Rivera's because I found her narrative structure flowed better and communicated her points well.  While the way Rivera writes is interesting and made me think more thematically than in terms of plot points, I didn't find it as engaging. Alvarez manipulated her diction and syntax based upon the perspective she was writing from, which I enjoyed as a writing style.