Drown by Junot Diaz

In a nutshell, this is a very well-written book, and a quick read despite its literary nature, BUT. It’s rather… bleak.

With 10 stories, I would have expected at least one or two to have a more upbeat tone. But no, all of them describe the rough circumstances of Dominicans either in their own country or here in the US. There’s really nothing wrong with that, per se, but the barrage of hopeless situations can be hard to take for 200+ pages with few, if any, rays of sunshine or laugh-out-loud moments.

Still, it IS smooth, and full of rich details and lively characters, so I enjoyed it and can understand why it brought Junot Diaz to the attention of the literary world. I also appreciated how the stories connected and I could mostly follow/construct the whole story of the family as I went along. I found myself, as a “student” of writing and aspiring writer, most intrigued by where he chose to end each story. They were poignant moments, but not necessarily places where things felt finished or closed. I see this often lately, to varying degrees of success. I think Diaz did a pretty good job.

Favorite lines:

You know how it is when you get back with somebody you’ve loved. It felt better than it ever was, better than it ever could be again. (p 64)

Intuitively, I knew how easily distances could harden and become permanent. (p 75)