Genres
Publication
Riverhead Books (2012), 224 pages
Description
Presents a collection of stories that explores the heartbreak and radiance of love as it is shaped by passion, betrayal, and the echoes of intimacy.
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Media reviews
The strongest tales are those fueled by the verbal energy and magpie language that made “Brief Wondrous Life” so memorable and that capture Yunior’s efforts to commute between two cultures, Dominican and American, while always remaining an outsider.
“This Is How You Lose Her” doesn’t
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aspire to be a grand anatomy of love like Gabriel García Márquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera” — which opens out into a luminous meditation on the varieties of love and loss and the persistence of passion — but it gives us a small, revealing window on the subject. Show Less
Lecturalia
Así es como la pierdes es un libro sobre mujeres que quitan el sentido y sobre el amor y el ardor. Y sobre la traición porque a veces traicionamos lo que más queremos, y también es un libro sobre el suplicio que pasamos después –los ruegos, las lágrimas, la sensación de estar atravesando
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un campo de minas– para intentar recuperar lo que perdimos. Aquello que creíamos que no queríamos, que no nos importaba. Estos cuentos nos enseñan las leyes fijas del amor: que la desesperanza de los padres la acaban sufriendo los hijos, que lo que les hacemos a nuestros ex amantes nos lo harán inevitablemente a nosotros, y que aquello de «amar al prójimo como a uno mismo» no funciona bajo la influencia de Eros. Pero sobre todo, estos cuentos nos recuerdan que el ardor siempre triunfa sobre la experiencia, y que el amor, cuando llega de verdad, necesita más de una vida para desvanecerse. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member msf59
“The half-life of love is forever."
We first encountered Yunior, a Dominican-American kid, back in ‘97, in the stories Drown and then he made an appearance in the Pulitzer prize winning Oscar Wao. He returns for the third time, growing into adulthood, in this amazing collection, which I think
This is an ode to love, in all it’s various guises. A steaming kettle of heartbreak, infidelity, joy, pain and laughter, told in rich, razor-sharp prose, sprinkled with the spicy rhythms of a Spanglish tango. Here are a couple delectable nuggets:
“You, Yunior, have a girlfriend named Alma, who has a long tender horse neck and a big Dominican ass that could drag the moon out of orbit. An ass she never liked until she met you. Ain't a day that passes that you don't want to press your face against that ass or bite the delicate sliding tendons of her neck. You love how she shivers when you bite, how she fights you with those arms that are so skinny they belong on an after-school special."
“The newest girl’s name is Samantha and she’s a problem. She’s dark and heavy-browed and has a mouth like unswept glass-when you least expect it she cuts you.”
We first encountered Yunior, a Dominican-American kid, back in ‘97, in the stories Drown and then he made an appearance in the Pulitzer prize winning Oscar Wao. He returns for the third time, growing into adulthood, in this amazing collection, which I think
Show More
is his best. This is an ode to love, in all it’s various guises. A steaming kettle of heartbreak, infidelity, joy, pain and laughter, told in rich, razor-sharp prose, sprinkled with the spicy rhythms of a Spanglish tango. Here are a couple delectable nuggets:
“You, Yunior, have a girlfriend named Alma, who has a long tender horse neck and a big Dominican ass that could drag the moon out of orbit. An ass she never liked until she met you. Ain't a day that passes that you don't want to press your face against that ass or bite the delicate sliding tendons of her neck. You love how she shivers when you bite, how she fights you with those arms that are so skinny they belong on an after-school special."
“The newest girl’s name is Samantha and she’s a problem. She’s dark and heavy-browed and has a mouth like unswept glass-when you least expect it she cuts you.”
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LibraryThing member adzebill
These linked short stories were written over 14 years but read as a loosely-joined novel, finishing with the most painful and likely-autobiographical, “The Cheater’s Guide to Love”. Díaz writes in a loose Spanish-English mixture, poetic and crude, completely enthralling and unlike anything
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else I’ve read all year; I’ll be checking out Oscar Wao. Show Less
LibraryThing member freelancer_frank
This is a book about love and struggle, as characterized by Dominican immigrants to the States. Diaz can turn out sentences, situation, psychology and character beautifully. In the end, however, the books messages are just so much banality - 'Cancer is Sad', 'Philandering Can Get A Man In Trouble'
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and so on. Nothing too deep here but enough profundity to keep the uninformed happy. Show Less
LibraryThing member browner56
Sometimes, it pays to keep riding a winner. In This Is How You Lose Her, Junot Diaz once again focuses his considerable writing skills on the exploits of Yunior, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who now lives in the northeastern United States. In a collection of short stories so connected
And what a journey that proves to be. The protagonist is seldom likeable but almost always compelling, whether he takes center-stage in the narrative or serves as an observer to the adventures of his rakish (and doomed) older brother. The inability of the men in Yunior’s family to remain faithful to their loved ones becomes a major theme in the book and Diaz is neither shy nor subtle in the way he portrays the motives and actions of his main characters. I found his language to be nothing short of thrilling, with its mixture of idiomatic and foreign expressions sprinkled throughout the raw and unvarnished emotional descriptions. (In fact, Diaz’s use of untranslated Spanish and unpunctuated dialogue make him sort of a hip-hop, Latino version of Cormac McCarthy.)
There really is not a weak story in the whole collection, but I still had my favorites. The book begins and ends with ‘The Sun, the Moon, the Stars’ and ‘The Cheater’s Guide to Love’, which both describe with heartbreaking clarity the loss of love through infidelity and the lingering effects of that loss. Conversely, ‘Invierno’ takes us back to the beginning, with the arrival of the family in the United States when Yunior and Rafa were boys and Papi and Mami were still together. This is atmospheric, evocative story-telling that lays the groundwork for understanding so much of what transpires elsewhere. The other six stories—many of which are named for Yunior’s former lovers—are also intriguing, if somewhat more slightly realized. Taken as a whole, This Is How You Lose Her feels like a big step forward for an author that is rapidly becoming a major literary talent.
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that they come close to being a slightly disjointed novel, here we get a substantial amount of the backfill to the tale of Yunior, his brother Rafa, and the rest of his family that began in the author’s earlier works Drown and, to a lesser extent, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. In particular—and in no specific order—we follow Yunior from his arrival in New Jersey as a boy through his life as a young professor in Boston.And what a journey that proves to be. The protagonist is seldom likeable but almost always compelling, whether he takes center-stage in the narrative or serves as an observer to the adventures of his rakish (and doomed) older brother. The inability of the men in Yunior’s family to remain faithful to their loved ones becomes a major theme in the book and Diaz is neither shy nor subtle in the way he portrays the motives and actions of his main characters. I found his language to be nothing short of thrilling, with its mixture of idiomatic and foreign expressions sprinkled throughout the raw and unvarnished emotional descriptions. (In fact, Diaz’s use of untranslated Spanish and unpunctuated dialogue make him sort of a hip-hop, Latino version of Cormac McCarthy.)
There really is not a weak story in the whole collection, but I still had my favorites. The book begins and ends with ‘The Sun, the Moon, the Stars’ and ‘The Cheater’s Guide to Love’, which both describe with heartbreaking clarity the loss of love through infidelity and the lingering effects of that loss. Conversely, ‘Invierno’ takes us back to the beginning, with the arrival of the family in the United States when Yunior and Rafa were boys and Papi and Mami were still together. This is atmospheric, evocative story-telling that lays the groundwork for understanding so much of what transpires elsewhere. The other six stories—many of which are named for Yunior’s former lovers—are also intriguing, if somewhat more slightly realized. Taken as a whole, This Is How You Lose Her feels like a big step forward for an author that is rapidly becoming a major literary talent.
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LibraryThing member LoveAtFirstBook
This is How You Lose Her is a novel written in short story form. The main character, Yunior, is a tragic but compelling individual. I really liked him, even though he liked to sleep around on his women and had some of his own issues to get over. Living in America but born in Santo Domingo, Yunior
While I was reading, I came across this quote that made me laugh. This occurred while Yunior and his mother were discussing a neighbor who didn’t have any children:
“Maybe she just doesn’t like children.” ”Nobody likes children, your mother assured you. That doesn’t mean you don’t have them.” (p. 153)
I highly recommend this book!
Thanks for reading,
Rebecca @ Love at First Book
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was trying to adjust and live life, all while chasing as many women as possible.While I was reading, I came across this quote that made me laugh. This occurred while Yunior and his mother were discussing a neighbor who didn’t have any children:
“Maybe she just doesn’t like children.” ”Nobody likes children, your mother assured you. That doesn’t mean you don’t have them.” (p. 153)
I highly recommend this book!
Thanks for reading,
Rebecca @ Love at First Book
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LibraryThing member BALE
This is How You Lose Her is a novel made up of interrelated short stories. They are linked by the cultural and environmental influences that affect race and family. The trickle-down effect, so-to-speak, is the objectification of women. The result is harsh and dark. However, the author infiltrates a
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bit of ironic humor that enables the reader to feel sympathy (at times) for an, otherwise, undeserving character. In, This is How You Lose Her, Junot Diaz writes with authenticity – a realism that some will find too close for comfort and others will respect for its unflinching honesty. Show Less
LibraryThing member SamSattler
Junot Díaz’s This Is How You Lose Her, a nine-story collection, is the author’s follow-up to his 2008 Pulitzer-winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Seven of the stories were first published in The New Yorker between February 1998 and July 2012, one in Glimmer Train in 1998, and
Reading these stories in the order in which they are presented here, one after the other, will be a greatly different experience than that had by those who read them over the fourteen-year period during which they first appeared in print. This Is How You Lose Her, in fact, reads more like a novel than it does a short story collection. This is because all of the stories, although they flip back and forth between segments of his life, feature the same central character already familiar to readers of Díaz’s two previous books. Yunior, a young Dominican, along with his mother and older brother, came to the United States when he was just a boy, and these stories, in addition to telling how Yunior got here, detail what happened to him once he did.
Be forewarned that these stories, insightful as they often are, are written in a raw, sometimes outrageous, style. Díaz writes in a Hispanic street vernacular that sees him often mixing Spanish words into his sentences. And, even though entire sentences are sometimes presented in Spanish, Díaz leaves it up to non-Spanish speaking readers to figure out what he is saying based on the context of the rest of the paragraph. But that is the least of it.
Yunior is a womanizer, and he comes by it naturally. His father, although not a constant in Yunior’s life, set the pattern for that lifestyle early on, leaving Yunior to learn all the moves by watching his older brother in action. His is the kind of macho culture in which women are primarily objects to be sexually exploited, and Yunior describes in explicit terms what he gets from the women who briefly pass through his life.
Some might find Yunior’s language offensive, but it is exactly this style and language that make Díaz’s stories as powerful and effective as they are. However, one does begin to wonder how long such a distinctive style can be mined before it goes stale for the reader. Even though this is my first experience with Junot Díaz’s work, I already wonder how much more of it I can read before the style becomes tiresome. Díaz is definitely on my radar now, but I am more likely to wait for something new from him written in a different voice than I am to seek out either of his two earlier books.
This Is How You Lose Her is a book about heartbreak – and the very macho central character, surprisingly enough, suffers much of it himself.
Rated at 4.0
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another in Story in 1999. Reading these stories in the order in which they are presented here, one after the other, will be a greatly different experience than that had by those who read them over the fourteen-year period during which they first appeared in print. This Is How You Lose Her, in fact, reads more like a novel than it does a short story collection. This is because all of the stories, although they flip back and forth between segments of his life, feature the same central character already familiar to readers of Díaz’s two previous books. Yunior, a young Dominican, along with his mother and older brother, came to the United States when he was just a boy, and these stories, in addition to telling how Yunior got here, detail what happened to him once he did.
Be forewarned that these stories, insightful as they often are, are written in a raw, sometimes outrageous, style. Díaz writes in a Hispanic street vernacular that sees him often mixing Spanish words into his sentences. And, even though entire sentences are sometimes presented in Spanish, Díaz leaves it up to non-Spanish speaking readers to figure out what he is saying based on the context of the rest of the paragraph. But that is the least of it.
Yunior is a womanizer, and he comes by it naturally. His father, although not a constant in Yunior’s life, set the pattern for that lifestyle early on, leaving Yunior to learn all the moves by watching his older brother in action. His is the kind of macho culture in which women are primarily objects to be sexually exploited, and Yunior describes in explicit terms what he gets from the women who briefly pass through his life.
Some might find Yunior’s language offensive, but it is exactly this style and language that make Díaz’s stories as powerful and effective as they are. However, one does begin to wonder how long such a distinctive style can be mined before it goes stale for the reader. Even though this is my first experience with Junot Díaz’s work, I already wonder how much more of it I can read before the style becomes tiresome. Díaz is definitely on my radar now, but I am more likely to wait for something new from him written in a different voice than I am to seek out either of his two earlier books.
This Is How You Lose Her is a book about heartbreak – and the very macho central character, surprisingly enough, suffers much of it himself.
Rated at 4.0
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LibraryThing member Narshkite
Genius. Diaz writes like no one I have ever read and tells stories no one else has told me. What he does with language is like an endless dazzling party trick. I will sometimes get to the end of a particularly amazing paragraph and find myself praising him aloud. Freaking beautiful. Yunior, whom I
Read this, but read "Oscar Wao" first. If you are like me, you will find your perception of the world changed and your assumptions about how dynamic language can be widened.
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met in "Drown" and got to know a little better in "Oscar Wao" is front and center here. He is much smarter than I thought, and more observant, and still entirely led by his d*ck. Dominican men who are not dogs should sue for slander. Read this, but read "Oscar Wao" first. If you are like me, you will find your perception of the world changed and your assumptions about how dynamic language can be widened.
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LibraryThing member Laura400
To me, vastly over-rated. I suppose to many it seems edgy and honest, but I generally like edgy and honest. This seems almost cliched. The dialogue, the bilingual swearing and the voice he assumes in nearly all of the stories -- it all seems somehow calculated and slick. Like a young "new
A couple of the stories do rise above the others -- "Otravida, Otravez" and "A Cheater's Guide to Love." But it's mostly the same tale repeated in different form of wounded-man-who-cannot-love.
He has talent and fierceness and can propel a story. But it's not really enough here, at least for me. You can't feel sorry for him; he already has that covered. You can't admire him or root for him. Like the stories' various girlfriends, I was just glad to close the book and move on.
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journalist" type trying to seem cool.A couple of the stories do rise above the others -- "Otravida, Otravez" and "A Cheater's Guide to Love." But it's mostly the same tale repeated in different form of wounded-man-who-cannot-love.
He has talent and fierceness and can propel a story. But it's not really enough here, at least for me. You can't feel sorry for him; he already has that covered. You can't admire him or root for him. Like the stories' various girlfriends, I was just glad to close the book and move on.
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LibraryThing member book.fidelity
To begin, I have not read anything written by Junot Díaz before I picked up this book. I didn't know what to expect and nor was I aware of the fact that Yunior is a character that shows up rather frequently in Díaz's writings. Do you have to read everything else before you read this book? No, it
Within this book's pages, you will find story after story of pain, heartache and love. Between man and woman, mother and father, brothers, and cultures. There are lines so electrifying that I had to stop for a moment and just let them sink in. They were that beautiful. This book does not portray a perfect love story. What it does show us is the hard work that goes into a love that will last. It also shows just how quickly someone can lose everything. Sadly, it sometimes takes losing it all to realize that you truly had everything to begin with.
All the stories were executed extremely well - but I must say that Díaz saved the absolutely best story for last, The Cheater's Guide to Love. Now, I haven't done much background research on Díaz (yet), but I have heard that much of his writing is autobiographical in nature. I learned not long after picking up the book that he and his fiancee broke up about 5 years before This is How You Lose Her was published. I bring this up because The Cheater's Guide to Love appears to be the most intimate portrayal of love lost in the whole collection. I believe this is the reason why it made my heart hurt the most while I read it.
A co-worker that saw me reading this told me that he heard Díaz was labeled a misogynist by some critics. I truly do not see the hatred or dislike of women in these stories. After hearing what my co-worker said, I read with a critical eye, looking for this hatred. However, I did not find any. Maybe I'm not sensitive enough, or maybe I have a different way of understanding - but when I read his words, I read the pain of losing the "right" woman and having no one to blame but himself in the end.
You may notice that this is the most I have written about any book (except for maybe The Millennium Series). That, is how much I truly enjoyed these stories. Now, keep in mind, these are love stories in the most realistic sense. They are not perfect fairy tales, so do not expect to find them. There is some Dominican slang, some Spanish and some vulgar words. These did not bother me, but I read a book for the story and I am not sensitive to these details. Keep this in mind when you think about picking up this book. Needless to say, I loved it (and now need to own it).
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works as a stand alone book. Within this book's pages, you will find story after story of pain, heartache and love. Between man and woman, mother and father, brothers, and cultures. There are lines so electrifying that I had to stop for a moment and just let them sink in. They were that beautiful. This book does not portray a perfect love story. What it does show us is the hard work that goes into a love that will last. It also shows just how quickly someone can lose everything. Sadly, it sometimes takes losing it all to realize that you truly had everything to begin with.
All the stories were executed extremely well - but I must say that Díaz saved the absolutely best story for last, The Cheater's Guide to Love. Now, I haven't done much background research on Díaz (yet), but I have heard that much of his writing is autobiographical in nature. I learned not long after picking up the book that he and his fiancee broke up about 5 years before This is How You Lose Her was published. I bring this up because The Cheater's Guide to Love appears to be the most intimate portrayal of love lost in the whole collection. I believe this is the reason why it made my heart hurt the most while I read it.
A co-worker that saw me reading this told me that he heard Díaz was labeled a misogynist by some critics. I truly do not see the hatred or dislike of women in these stories. After hearing what my co-worker said, I read with a critical eye, looking for this hatred. However, I did not find any. Maybe I'm not sensitive enough, or maybe I have a different way of understanding - but when I read his words, I read the pain of losing the "right" woman and having no one to blame but himself in the end.
You may notice that this is the most I have written about any book (except for maybe The Millennium Series). That, is how much I truly enjoyed these stories. Now, keep in mind, these are love stories in the most realistic sense. They are not perfect fairy tales, so do not expect to find them. There is some Dominican slang, some Spanish and some vulgar words. These did not bother me, but I read a book for the story and I am not sensitive to these details. Keep this in mind when you think about picking up this book. Needless to say, I loved it (and now need to own it).
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LibraryThing member mojomomma
A quick read, these short stories focus on Yunior and his brother Rafa's relationships with women. Lots of quantity, not much quality in terms of the women and the sex. Lots of Spanish, lots of slang all talking about the same thing.
LibraryThing member Beamis12
Crude and raw, almost like being privvy to the musings of teenage boys in a locker room. Relationships, the quest for love and companionship, what type of person appeals to whom and the choices we make to stay connected. Interlocking stories, which put together tell the stories of a life with all
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it's expectations of bettering oneself or maybe just living each day. Okay, just not for me right now. Show Less
LibraryThing member Cecilturtle
I love Diaz's brassy style which communicates not only a culture and a people but so many emotions: from love and anger to homesickness and cockiness. The reader gets pulled into an environment so familiar and yet unique, which reaches out across language and nationality.
Not all stories are equal,
A quick read, but a potent one.
Not all stories are equal,
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in my mind, but all of them do have a gem, a lesson on life: from Rafa's illness to Elvis's lost son, these stories aren't just about sex, but about the complexities of relationships be they marital, filial or romantic.A quick read, but a potent one.
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LibraryThing member AramisSciant
In these new collection of short stories, Junot Díaz for the most part returns to Yunior, the character from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, shedding more light on his character, his psyche, his relationships and his past. Not all of it is pretty but all of it is written in beautiful,
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masterful sentences. There's still a lot of the language switching from the first novel but some sentences just make you stop and read them again to enjoy them fully. There's a glimmer of hope that by the end of this book the character of Yunior has evolved, has learned (or grown up) a little but I wouldn't hold my breath. I will definitely await his next book, though. Show Less
LibraryThing member indylrm
Personally, I think Junot Diaz is overrated. I get that his writing is more about culture than anything, but I could never get past thinking that his stories are autobigraphical. Also, no big deal. Even though I didn't really want to finish this book, I did.
LibraryThing member kmaziarz
Pulitzer-winner Diaz’s new collection of short stories is a triumph. As with his earlier collection, Drown, the stories are linked by a common theme. Whereas in Drown the stories were mostly coming-of-age tales of immigrant life, in This Is How You Lose Her they are stories of love, betrayal, and
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the other constants of adult romantic relationships. Yunior, the loud-mouthed authorial stand-in protagonist Diaz continues to return to, is the narrator for most of these stories, and the landscape will be familiar to anyone well-versed in Diaz’s earlier work. Stand-outs in the collection include the final story, The Cheater’s Guide to Love; and the only story to feature a female protagonist, Otravida, Otravez. Show Less
LibraryThing member sogamonk
Vintage Junot Diaz. Enjoyed the "cheating" stories initially but after a while the
whole book became somewhat tiresome.
Still,always like Diaz' writing form and how he mixes English and Dominican slang in his sentences.
In the end , a quick read . Mr. Diaz ,we know, can do much better.
whole book became somewhat tiresome.
Still,always like Diaz' writing form and how he mixes English and Dominican slang in his sentences.
In the end , a quick read . Mr. Diaz ,we know, can do much better.
LibraryThing member St.CroixSue
A collection of stories by Junot Diaz, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Diaz writes in a poetic, energetic, raw, sexy style that seems to integrate the life force of the Dominican Republic and Dominican immigrants. Gritty and at the same time lyrical, read
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by the author. Show Less
LibraryThing member alpin
Remarkable collection of linked stories, most of them featuring Yunior, his macho brother Rafa, his Mami, his Papi, who brings the family from the Dominican Republic to snow-covered New Jersey, and the many women Yunior loves, betrays and loses. Profane, funny, heartbreaking, searing. Wonderful.
LibraryThing member Yllom
The audiobook is read by the author, Junot Diaz, to wonderful effect. We follow the life and romantic misadventures of Yunior, from the time his family immigrated from the Dominican Republic to his life as a professor in Cambridge -- although not in a straight chronology. Diaz's language is in
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turns brash and lyrical, peppered with slang. Junior is not always an easy guy to like, and that he becomes a sympathetic character at all is due to Diaz's genius (as further evidenced by his being named a MacArthur Fellow in 2012). The version of the audiobook I listened to was further interspersed with latin music, helping to set the mood and carry me away. Show Less
LibraryThing member icolford
Attitudes toward sexuality vary from one culture to the next, but one thing that remains consistent across cultures is that given the least encouragement a boy will try to get into a girl's pants. This familiar, obvious and fundamental social behaviour is at the crux of Junot Díaz's second
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collection of short fiction. The stories in This is How You Lose Her chronicle the early life of Yunior, who grows up in New York, the son of Dominican immigrants. Yunior is not a natural womanizer, but he learns the basics of the art from his brother Rafa, who has apparently made it the central mission of his brief life (he dies of cancer barely out of his teens) to have sex with as many women as possible. One of the things Yunior does not learn is monogamy--and in fact seems, like his brother, to abhor the very notion, carrying on with numerous other women even when involved in a "serious" relationship. Not surprisingly, at the end of Díaz's coming-of-age story sequence the grown up Yunior, who is now a professor teaching in Boston while trying to jump start a writing career, is alone, emotionally devastated by a breakup that occurred five years earlier. What is surprising is that Díaz enlists his reader's sympathies for his hapless protagonist by drawing us into the struggle of a young man who is perceptive and sensitive, but at odds with sexual instincts that lead him astray time and time again. The book is a quick read, narrated in snappy, rhythmic prose laced with Spanish vernacular and sexual slang. The voice is infectious and comes across as casual, but Junot Díaz is a careful writer whose triumph in this book is seducing the reader into caring for a protagonist who is his own worst enemy and the deserving recipient of every curse flung in his face by a woman he has betrayed. Show Less
LibraryThing member lisapeet
This was a good collection of stories but they all sort of hit the same note, kept the same pitch and pacing, used the same language. And by that I don't mean I'm objecting to all the Spanish and Spanglish, which I know bothered some readers. I was fine with that, actually liked it -- it made for
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some nice rhythm. There was nothing I objected to, really. But it was all of a very consistent piece and in the end that kept it from tipping over into something wonderful for me. Show Less
LibraryThing member porch_reader
In these short stories, Diaz returns again and again to the challenges of love and loss. The stories are linked by Yunior, a complex character who fails at love in every way possible. Diaz travels back and forth in time, allowing his readers to gradually see the full picture. He once again writes
Diaz's style is made for short stories. It is spare and rich. For example, in contrasting a lush resort with the rest of the Dominican Republic, Diaz observes, "Case de Campo has got beaches the way the rest of the island has got problems."
What really impressed me is that I shouldn't have identified with these characters, these situations, and these stories. Yunior's experiences in life and love couldn't be farther from my own. But I fell into each story. I turned the last page and wanted to start back at the beginning. In addition to being a master class in short story writing, Diaz provides a fresh look at a topic that so many others have written about - love.
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what he knows, the experience of a native of the Dominican Republic in the U.S. As a result, each story is packed with details that makes it leap off the page. Diaz's style is made for short stories. It is spare and rich. For example, in contrasting a lush resort with the rest of the Dominican Republic, Diaz observes, "Case de Campo has got beaches the way the rest of the island has got problems."
What really impressed me is that I shouldn't have identified with these characters, these situations, and these stories. Yunior's experiences in life and love couldn't be farther from my own. But I fell into each story. I turned the last page and wanted to start back at the beginning. In addition to being a master class in short story writing, Diaz provides a fresh look at a topic that so many others have written about - love.
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LibraryThing member mawls
I wish I knew Spanish so that I could know what a lot of the slang and conversational phrases were in the stories. Still enjoyable.
LibraryThing member tonile.helena
Prior to reading This is How You Lose Her, I’d never read any Junot Díaz. For a long time, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (winner of the Pulitzer Fiction Prize in 20008) has sat in my To Be Read pile. For a long time, I have not touched it, but I do feel more motivated to pick it up now.
Yunior, like Díaz, is a storyteller, and his storytelling style takes some getting used it. Yunior shifts from English to Spanish without warning, and his voice is equally poetic as it is profane. While this might sound distracting, Díaz’s prose surrounding the Spanish makes it easier for readers to understand the unfamiliar words. It’s authentic and it’s unique and miraculously, Díaz makes it work. The collection begins with The Sun, the Moon, the Stars and Yunior’s opening line to the reader is “I’m not a bad guy”. Not only does that line set the tone for the first story, but I found that it serves as a reminder for the reader when considering the collection as a whole.
But is Yunior a bad guy? Sure. In certain parts, he’s an awful guy. He is disrespectful and treats his women badly (infidelity is a recurrent theme throughout the collection). But other stories reveal the deeper and darker layers of Yunior’s life. In Invierno, readers learn how Yunior’s family move from the Dominican Republic to America and come to understand the difficulties they face assimilating into American life. Later, in The Pura Principle, Yunior’s brother loses his fight with a terminal illness. Does that make up for the horrible things he does in his older life? Not at all. But for as much as I was angry with him at certain stages, my heart broke for him and the difficult life he lived. The final story, The Cheater’s Guide to Love, shows the reader Yunior as a middle aged man. It’s a bleak and at time depressing look at a man whose physical and mental state are beginning to fail him. His life is catching up to him and although he has mellowed and softened somewhat, Cheater’s demonstrates that old habits die hard and learning from the mistakes of youth is easier said than done.
This is How You Lose Her wasn’t my favourite book of 2012. But it made me think harder and deeper than most, and Yunior has an amazing way of staying with you long after you put the book back on the shelf.
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This is How You Lose Her is a collection of short stories about love and loss, and the loss of love. It covers all sorts of love–new love, old love, forbidden love, family love, messy love, sexy love, heartbreaking love. The stories are narrated by different individuals, but figuring most prominently is Díaz’s regular character, Yunior de las Casas. I like Díaz’s attempt at continuity across his novel and short stories, but it’s something I’m sure I’ll appreciate more once I read his other works.Yunior, like Díaz, is a storyteller, and his storytelling style takes some getting used it. Yunior shifts from English to Spanish without warning, and his voice is equally poetic as it is profane. While this might sound distracting, Díaz’s prose surrounding the Spanish makes it easier for readers to understand the unfamiliar words. It’s authentic and it’s unique and miraculously, Díaz makes it work. The collection begins with The Sun, the Moon, the Stars and Yunior’s opening line to the reader is “I’m not a bad guy”. Not only does that line set the tone for the first story, but I found that it serves as a reminder for the reader when considering the collection as a whole.
But is Yunior a bad guy? Sure. In certain parts, he’s an awful guy. He is disrespectful and treats his women badly (infidelity is a recurrent theme throughout the collection). But other stories reveal the deeper and darker layers of Yunior’s life. In Invierno, readers learn how Yunior’s family move from the Dominican Republic to America and come to understand the difficulties they face assimilating into American life. Later, in The Pura Principle, Yunior’s brother loses his fight with a terminal illness. Does that make up for the horrible things he does in his older life? Not at all. But for as much as I was angry with him at certain stages, my heart broke for him and the difficult life he lived. The final story, The Cheater’s Guide to Love, shows the reader Yunior as a middle aged man. It’s a bleak and at time depressing look at a man whose physical and mental state are beginning to fail him. His life is catching up to him and although he has mellowed and softened somewhat, Cheater’s demonstrates that old habits die hard and learning from the mistakes of youth is easier said than done.
This is How You Lose Her wasn’t my favourite book of 2012. But it made me think harder and deeper than most, and Yunior has an amazing way of staying with you long after you put the book back on the shelf.
Show Less
ISBN
1594487367 / 9781594487361