The Things We Didn't Know
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Average rating3.5
The USA TODAY bestselling inaugural winner of Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us contest, Elba Iris Pérez’s lyrical and “wonderfully compelling” (Judith Simon Prager, author of What the Dolphin Said) cross-cultural coming-of-age debut novel explores a young girl’s childhood between 1950s Puerto Rico and a small Massachusetts factory town.
Andrea Rodríguez is nine years old when her mother whisks her and her brother, Pablo, away from Woronoco, the tiny Massachusetts factory town that is the only home they’ve known. With no plan and no money, she leaves them with family in the mountainside villages of Puerto Rico and promises to return.
Months later, when Andrea and Pablo are brought back to Massachusetts, they find their hometown significantly changed. As they navigate the rifts between their family’s values and all-American culture and face the harsh realities of growing up, they must embrace both the triumphs and heartache that mark the journey to adulthood.
A heartfelt, evocative portrait that “breathes with narrative magic” (Harry Youtt, poet and author of I’m Never Not Thinking of You), The Things We Didn’t Know establishes Elba Iris Pérez as a sensational new literary voice.
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This book touches on many topics, including racism (various cultures, but mostly Puerto Rican v. Los Morenos - Puerto Rican v. Spanish (blonde hair, etc.), the 60's, drugs, ways of living, the Vietnam war. I really enjoyed the story telling in this book. I also enjoyed Marisa Blank's reading of it (I listened to it). I struggle with the overall conflict though. This is the first book that I think I've looked at critically, in my adult reading, where I've thought... but why? As I stated, I enjoyed the storytelling. But that's kind of what it seems this book comes down to. The storytelling... there isn't some great hurdle that is highlighted or needing to be overcome. There are many immigrant stories that would follow similar paths to this one.
Spoiler Alert
In the end, Pablo and Andrea say, “they made it”. But how is that possible? They didn't deal with their mother. No resolution there. They go back to Warinoko (sp?) and decide that they made it? Did they just mean that they made it out of Warinoko?
