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A review by raesengele
The Tequila Worm by Viola Canales
3.0
Entertainment: 1 star
This book isn't boring. There is a heart that was put into it that you can feel as you read it. This may be mostly because this seems to be a very autobiographical book. It's hard not to put heart into something you yourself lived.
Story: .75 stars
I found the atmosphere and the depiction of Mexican American culture was the best part of this book. While I grew up around Mexican American culture, I was never immersed enough to really understand why certain things were done. This book did help me to better understand certain parts of the culture that I hadn't previously. As well, despite not being Mexican American, this book did make me feel a bit more proud of the area I come from.
It's also very much a story about family and how your family extends to those who help carry you through life, not just the people you're related to by blood. The whole theme of comadres/compadres was a great overarching theme that I really did enjoy. If you want a book that will either give you a view of Mexican American family life or to inspire you or your kids to take pride in their heritage, this is a good book to pick up.
What kept me from giving it a full star, however, is the fact that it felt more like a fix-up novel. Knowing that this is Canales' first novel and that her experience with writing before was short stories, this does make sense. Most of the book is just a series of vignettes with the tension/conflict of the moment being resolved by the end of the chapter. Which brings me to the whole novel aspect of this book. I'm still not sure why it was written as a novel and not as a memoir. The segmented vignettes and the real world lack of overarching tension is something that is much better suited for a memoir and are things that I wouldn't have questioned had it not been presented to me as a novel.
Character: .5 stars
While you can't help but enjoy the characters, they are all pretty two dimensional with very few flaws between them. Probably the most rounded feeling character was Berta who grew and changed throughout the book while learning to embrace and mold her flaws and accentuating her strengths. Sophia's mother was probably the next rounded out character, however, there were too many times when she felt like a bit too much of a cartoon character, especially the stocking baby in the grocery store story. While I liked the father, he was too perfect and saint like.
Both Lucy and Sophia felt like they never aged. Even at St. Luke's, Sophia never felt like a teen to me. There was a lot of focus on Berta changing, but not a lot on Sophia, the main character. While I understand that Sophia is a "tom boy" and not the stereotypical teen who is into boys and makeup and all that, but even teen "tom boys" are not the same as ten year old "tom boys."
Writing Style: 0 stars | Descriptions: .5 stars
I can't seem to separate these two and I keep talking about them as one, so, we're going to treat them as one.
The writing style was the thing that kept me from really enjoying this book. Aside from the lack of overarching tension or conflict, I felt that the wrong things were often shown. While her family and their love for each other was well developed, they floated in an empty void for me because we were never really shown where they were. Even as a Texan: I'm in South Central Texas, I've been to the border once in my life and never to the valley, so I'm not even sure what the landscape is like let alone what McAllen is like. We're never really shown McAllen, we hear about it often, but we never see it. This was especially glaring to me on two occasions: 1) when Sophia's mother takes her to the rich side of town to trick-or-treat. We never see how the area or setting is contrasting only the woman at the door and the fact that the treats are different. 2) when Sophia first goes to Austin. We never see the change in setting or landscape. Not only is Austin an interesting city visually that lends itself to being described, seeing the city would help us to see just how away from home Sophia is without ever needing to know how far it is in distance. While the school is described to some degree, it's in very generic language: "spacious green playing fields," "grand stone buildings around a large quadrangle," a list of facilities without description (pg 128). It doesn't help that we are never given an image of McAllen or the valley, so we have nothing to contrast these generic, collegiate terms with.
Also, while the characters mentioned the valley several times, Canales just assumed that the reader knew what she was referencing. The same thing was done with Whataburger and HEB, both of which were only mentioned once but that are huge parts of Texas culture and that any reader who isn't from Texas won't understand how big of a deal it is that her school in Austin isn't near an HEB, the primary grocery store chain that is in just about every city/town in the state of Texas and no where else in the US. In fact, we hear more about Wal-Mart than we do HEB, which was another issue I had. Berta explains to Sophia that Wal-Mart isn't a place to shop, it's where people go to hang out during the summer, but we never actually see this happening.
Another thing that really bothered me was the stilted dialogue and the ham-fisted connections to early events. As an example, here's a chunk of dialogue that bothers me for several reasons:
1) The events that Papa is referring to here happened literally two chapters and about 20 pages back. While I understand that it's supposed to have been years for the characters, it hasn't been for the readers, we don't need a recap this soon in the book. All he needed to say was something along the lines of "Remember that Halloween all those years ago? After I took you to the cemetery? Do you remember what you told me?" One line, the reader remembers, Sophia remembers and we move on.
2) This is a family who is proud of their heritage. How in the hell has Sophia, who is fourteen at this point, not yet gone to the cemetery with her family to celebrate dias de los muertos? How is it that she still needs the act of visiting dead family members on October 31st compared to a sobremesa to understand why people go to the cemeteries? Even as a white child who only knew this custom through observations, I got this concept before I was 10. This explanation is for the readers who Canales is assuming don't get it and I don't like that it's happening here and not in the chapter about dias de los muertos.
3) This conversation happens because Sophia wants to go to a boarding school in Austin and this is one of the instances where I felt this would have been better suited as a memoir. Canales is coming up with a reason for why Sophia wants to go to the school, which I'm sure was Canales' reason for wanting to go to the school she went to, but in the context of a fictional novel, it's ham-fisted and feels as though it's only to connect back to the dias de los muertos chapter. Sophia has already been shown as a kid who wants to do the best she can in school and who prefers to be smart over worrying about "girly things" like quinceaneras. The fact that she wants to go to a prestigious school which will guarantee her a spot in an ivy league university should be enough of an incentive without adding in the bit about her wanting to "see what's out there, on the other side[.]" (pg 48)
Also, there's a point where a character says "University of Texas in Austin" as dialogue. No Texan would say the whole name out loud unless they were explaining to a non-Texan what UT Austin stood for. It wouldn't be that hard to include in the narration something along the lines of "He was referring to University of Texas in Austin, one of the most prestigious universities in Texas and is stupidly hard to get into."
Total: 2.75 (rounded up for goodreads)
While I did enjoy this book for what it offers in cultural representation of a "minority" group that I grew up around, but that I feel many others don't understand, there were a lot of basic story telling mistakes throughout the book that kept me from enjoying it as much as I really wanted to. And yet, had this been written as a memoir, I would have been able to ignore a good chunk of those mistakes.
This book isn't boring. There is a heart that was put into it that you can feel as you read it. This may be mostly because this seems to be a very autobiographical book. It's hard not to put heart into something you yourself lived.
Story: .75 stars
I found the atmosphere and the depiction of Mexican American culture was the best part of this book. While I grew up around Mexican American culture, I was never immersed enough to really understand why certain things were done. This book did help me to better understand certain parts of the culture that I hadn't previously. As well, despite not being Mexican American, this book did make me feel a bit more proud of the area I come from.
It's also very much a story about family and how your family extends to those who help carry you through life, not just the people you're related to by blood. The whole theme of comadres/compadres was a great overarching theme that I really did enjoy. If you want a book that will either give you a view of Mexican American family life or to inspire you or your kids to take pride in their heritage, this is a good book to pick up.
What kept me from giving it a full star, however, is the fact that it felt more like a fix-up novel. Knowing that this is Canales' first novel and that her experience with writing before was short stories, this does make sense. Most of the book is just a series of vignettes with the tension/conflict of the moment being resolved by the end of the chapter. Which brings me to the whole novel aspect of this book. I'm still not sure why it was written as a novel and not as a memoir. The segmented vignettes and the real world lack of overarching tension is something that is much better suited for a memoir and are things that I wouldn't have questioned had it not been presented to me as a novel.
Character: .5 stars
While you can't help but enjoy the characters, they are all pretty two dimensional with very few flaws between them. Probably the most rounded feeling character was Berta who grew and changed throughout the book while learning to embrace and mold her flaws and accentuating her strengths. Sophia's mother was probably the next rounded out character, however, there were too many times when she felt like a bit too much of a cartoon character, especially the stocking baby in the grocery store story. While I liked the father, he was too perfect and saint like.
Both Lucy and Sophia felt like they never aged. Even at St. Luke's, Sophia never felt like a teen to me. There was a lot of focus on Berta changing, but not a lot on Sophia, the main character. While I understand that Sophia is a "tom boy" and not the stereotypical teen who is into boys and makeup and all that, but even teen "tom boys" are not the same as ten year old "tom boys."
Writing Style: 0 stars | Descriptions: .5 stars
I can't seem to separate these two and I keep talking about them as one, so, we're going to treat them as one.
The writing style was the thing that kept me from really enjoying this book. Aside from the lack of overarching tension or conflict, I felt that the wrong things were often shown. While her family and their love for each other was well developed, they floated in an empty void for me because we were never really shown where they were. Even as a Texan: I'm in South Central Texas, I've been to the border once in my life and never to the valley, so I'm not even sure what the landscape is like let alone what McAllen is like. We're never really shown McAllen, we hear about it often, but we never see it. This was especially glaring to me on two occasions: 1) when Sophia's mother takes her to the rich side of town to trick-or-treat. We never see how the area or setting is contrasting only the woman at the door and the fact that the treats are different. 2) when Sophia first goes to Austin. We never see the change in setting or landscape. Not only is Austin an interesting city visually that lends itself to being described, seeing the city would help us to see just how away from home Sophia is without ever needing to know how far it is in distance. While the school is described to some degree, it's in very generic language: "spacious green playing fields," "grand stone buildings around a large quadrangle," a list of facilities without description (pg 128). It doesn't help that we are never given an image of McAllen or the valley, so we have nothing to contrast these generic, collegiate terms with.
Also, while the characters mentioned the valley several times, Canales just assumed that the reader knew what she was referencing. The same thing was done with Whataburger and HEB, both of which were only mentioned once but that are huge parts of Texas culture and that any reader who isn't from Texas won't understand how big of a deal it is that her school in Austin isn't near an HEB, the primary grocery store chain that is in just about every city/town in the state of Texas and no where else in the US. In fact, we hear more about Wal-Mart than we do HEB, which was another issue I had. Berta explains to Sophia that Wal-Mart isn't a place to shop, it's where people go to hang out during the summer, but we never actually see this happening.
Another thing that really bothered me was the stilted dialogue and the ham-fisted connections to early events. As an example, here's a chunk of dialogue that bothers me for several reasons:
"Ah, I think it's my turn now," Papa said, scratching his head. "Sofia, remember your two bags of Halloween candy years ago? And how I took you to the cemetery? Do you remember what you saw there? People were having a sobremesa of sorts with their visiting dead relatives. Do you remember this? And do you remember what you said on our way home that night, that you wished we lived on the other side of town because they lived in nice warm houses?" (pg 47-48)
1) The events that Papa is referring to here happened literally two chapters and about 20 pages back. While I understand that it's supposed to have been years for the characters, it hasn't been for the readers, we don't need a recap this soon in the book. All he needed to say was something along the lines of "Remember that Halloween all those years ago? After I took you to the cemetery? Do you remember what you told me?" One line, the reader remembers, Sophia remembers and we move on.
2) This is a family who is proud of their heritage. How in the hell has Sophia, who is fourteen at this point, not yet gone to the cemetery with her family to celebrate dias de los muertos? How is it that she still needs the act of visiting dead family members on October 31st compared to a sobremesa to understand why people go to the cemeteries? Even as a white child who only knew this custom through observations, I got this concept before I was 10. This explanation is for the readers who Canales is assuming don't get it and I don't like that it's happening here and not in the chapter about dias de los muertos.
3) This conversation happens because Sophia wants to go to a boarding school in Austin and this is one of the instances where I felt this would have been better suited as a memoir. Canales is coming up with a reason for why Sophia wants to go to the school, which I'm sure was Canales' reason for wanting to go to the school she went to, but in the context of a fictional novel, it's ham-fisted and feels as though it's only to connect back to the dias de los muertos chapter. Sophia has already been shown as a kid who wants to do the best she can in school and who prefers to be smart over worrying about "girly things" like quinceaneras. The fact that she wants to go to a prestigious school which will guarantee her a spot in an ivy league university should be enough of an incentive without adding in the bit about her wanting to "see what's out there, on the other side[.]" (pg 48)
Also, there's a point where a character says "University of Texas in Austin" as dialogue. No Texan would say the whole name out loud unless they were explaining to a non-Texan what UT Austin stood for. It wouldn't be that hard to include in the narration something along the lines of "He was referring to University of Texas in Austin, one of the most prestigious universities in Texas and is stupidly hard to get into."
Total: 2.75 (rounded up for goodreads)
While I did enjoy this book for what it offers in cultural representation of a "minority" group that I grew up around, but that I feel many others don't understand, there were a lot of basic story telling mistakes throughout the book that kept me from enjoying it as much as I really wanted to. And yet, had this been written as a memoir, I would have been able to ignore a good chunk of those mistakes.