![]() ![]() Where the book fails is in its use of ever-changing points of view. ![]() Throughout, the book is lit by sharp observations like these, and warmed by Henríquez's obvious affection for her characters. At one point, Mayor watches Maribel waking up in a car, and notices "an indentation along her cheek where she'd been resting it against the seat belt". Maribel's impairment is subtly, convincingly suggested, as is Mayor's growing dependence on her. The strength of the book is in the quiet details that convey this family's tragedy: the first groceries bought at a gas station, the kitchen cabinets with bedsheets stapled over their fronts in place of doors, the panic of missing a stop on the bus when one doesn't share a language with the other passengers. The story of the poverty and isolation they find is told from two points of view: that of Maribel's mother, Alma, and of Mayor, a lonely neighbour boy who falls in love with Maribel. Her parents have left a comfortable life in Mexico, hoping that American special-needs education will restore their only child to her former self. In particular, the novel centres on Maribel Rivera, a teenage girl with a severe brain injury. ![]() T he unknown Americans of Cristina Henríquez's novel are Hispanic tenants of a run-down apartment building in a down-at-heel Delaware town. ![]()
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