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This is How You Lose Her

3.76 of 5 stars 3.76 · rating details · 18,647 ratings · 2,675 reviews

On a beach in the Dominican Republic, a doomed relationship flounders. In the heat of a hospital laundry room in New Jersey, a woman does her lover’s washing and thinks about his wife. In Boston, a man buys his love child, his only son, a first baseball bat and glove. At the heart of these stories is the irrepressible, irresistible Yunior, a young hardhead whose longing fo...more

Hardcover, 213 pages

Published September 11th 2012 by Riverhead Books (first published 2012)

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Mar 28, 2013 Nick rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mmxiii-there-will-be-gass, short-hairs, five-stars-muthafunka, my-book-club-is-better-than-oprahs, reviewed

This Is...
This is about Yunior, about Yunior and his brother Rafa, about their Papi and Mami.
This is about love, life, and loss.
This is about the love we see in our youth and how that love shapes who we are and how it shapes how we love.
This is about how we find love and about how we make love last.
This is real love, not Hollywood love, not Pretty Woman love.
This is where the business man fucks the hooker for the week then goes back to his wife after the deal is done.
This is the way real lo...more

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Sep 29, 2012 Roger DeBlanck rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This Is How You Lose Her is Diaz’s best work to date. In 1997 he walloped the literary landscape like a meteor and established his name as a promising talent with Drown, a collection of gritty, unabashed stories centering on Dominican American immigrants and culture. Not until a decade later did he finish his next work, the acclaimed novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which recounts in ecstatic prose the tragedies that befall a first generation Dominican American family. Now with his ne...more This Is How You Lose Her is Diaz’s best work to date. In 1997 he walloped the literary landscape like a meteor and established his name as a promising talent with Drown, a collection of gritty, unabashed stories centering on Dominican American immigrants and culture. Not until a decade later did he finish his next work, the acclaimed novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which recounts in ecstatic prose the tragedies that befall a first generation Dominican American family. Now with his newest collection of stories, Diaz continues to explore his trademark themes of hardship, loss, failure, and resilience in the lives of Dominican American characters.

Each of the stories focuses on individuals facing tough times and the consequences of their choices, especially in regards to love and relationships. The central figure and narrator for several of the pieces is the incomparable Yunior. His voice ranks among the most distinctive and inimitable in modern literature. Through his perspective, Diaz gives us an uncensored, unbridled glimpse into the lives of a community of men and women battling through the riotous terrain of love, from both the emotional and carnal side. Diaz does not hold back with his oftentimes salacious details of love. He navigates the perils of sex and relationships with complete honesty and openness. He is a genius of language, most notably with the peerless voice of Yunior. Diaz’s literary abilities allow him to employ a poetical style that places him in a league of his own. His prose is like wildfire; it tears through everything and leaves you in awe.

With some of America’s literary giants such as Morrison, McCarthy, and Doctorow now in the twilight of their careers, I feel comfortable with Diaz blazing the trail for the next generation of great writers to follow. We can only hope Diaz continues to produce work in the decades ahead that resonates with the same uproarious energy for life as he does in This Is How You Lose Her. I can hardly wait for his next work.(less)

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Aug 14, 2012 Laima rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who understands spanish

Shelves: first-reads, 2012-reading-challenge, short-stories

***I won this book from GoodReads as a free FirstReads giveaway.***

This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

This book is composed of several short stories with Yunior, a Dominican, as the main character. The stories are related but not told in chronological order… they go forward and backward in time. There is a lot of Spanish in this book as well. I understood some of it but not a lot. I think most of the time I was lost somewhere in translation.

The first story is about Yunior on vacation in Sant...more ***I won this book from GoodReads as a free FirstReads giveaway.***

This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

This book is composed of several short stories with Yunior, a Dominican, as the main character. The stories are related but not told in chronological order… they go forward and backward in time. There is a lot of Spanish in this book as well. I understood some of it but not a lot. I think most of the time I was lost somewhere in translation.

The first story is about Yunior on vacation in Santo Domingo with his current girlfriend, Magda. Personally, I think she is an awful bitch and he is way too nice to her. “Dump her Yunior” I kept thinking. This chapter ends well.

Another story deals with Yunior, his brother Rafa (Rafael)and their mother coming to America. He has not seen his father for 5 years and now has to confront not only the cold winter climate of the Northeast but also the wrath of his very strict father. He also faces prejudice shown by the American white kids who whip snowballs at his window. This chapter made me sad.

Rafa does not feel or look well. Tests confirm that he is very ill. Rafa’s mother loves both her sons but she absolutely dotes on Rafa. He is the golden haired child that can do no wrong – even though he is absolutely horrible to his mother and brother. I think the mother is in serious denial and I found it really sad how she let herself be pushed around and bullied by Rafa. Even though he is desperately ill, Rafa marries Pura, the slutty whore who desperately wants her citizenship papers. I think he did this just to spite his overly religious mother. (The woman and her 4 friends “horsefaces” as Yunior calls them, pray all the time). In this situation, Yunior is very patient and tolerant of his brother.

There are some amusing parts in this book. When Yunior’s mother comes out of her bedroom carrying a gun, Yunior thinks she is going to blow away Pura. This, however, does not happen.

The stories are well written and the author has an excellent way of fleshing out the characters, in my opinion.

Overall, I think I probably would have enjoyed this book more if I understood Spanish. There are most likely nuances in the stories that just went over my head.

If you understand Spanish - read this book!(less)

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Apr 28, 2013 Danna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: angsty-love-story, family-drama, latin-lit, page-turner, recommended, spanglish, speed-read, racism, parental-advisory

I was blown away by The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, so when I saw that Junot Diaz had a new novel starring Wao protagonist Yunior, I immediately got on the library wait list. In This is How You Lose Her, Diaz employs the same vulgar, Spanglish, lyrical voice as he did in Wao, but I didn't find the novel equally earth-shattering. More than anything else, I was impressed by Diaz's creative and expansive use of similes, most of which were laugh-out-loud funny (see favorites below).

Yunior...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Gatamadrizgmail.com rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is a collection of short stories about Yunior. Yunior is a louse. All the men in his life are serial cheaters from his father to his brother to his best friend. Yes, there is a pitch that this is part of the Dominican Culture -- but frankly I can speak with women friends of mine from France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany and England and every single one of them knows this guy or has dated this clown. He screws around on women, and when he is caught and discarded there is great chest thumpin...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Jennifer by: Inprint

Shelves: own, read-2012, saw-author-2012

I have to preface this review with the following: I saw Junot Díaz at a sold-out Inprint event in Houston earlier this fall where he was promoting This is How You Lose Her. Anyone who has met Díaz in person will understand the significance of this statement. Díaz is a bona-fide firecracker and has a great sense of humor to boot. He showed up on stage in tennis shoes and blue jeans and held the audience completely captive. He was exceedingly liberal with his language, which, by the way, works its...more
I have to preface this review with the following: I saw Junot Díaz at a sold-out Inprint event in Houston earlier this fall where he was promoting This is How You Lose Her. Anyone who has met Díaz in person will understand the significance of this statement. Díaz is a bona-fide firecracker and has a great sense of humor to boot. He showed up on stage in tennis shoes and blue jeans and held the audience completely captive. He was exceedingly liberal with his language, which, by the way, works its way into his books. In addition to swearing like a sailor, Díaz was fond of saying “yeah” after every thought. Díaz doesn’t do what he does for the shock value, it’s just who he is. And I loved him.

Díaz candidly spoke of his literary beginnings and how he views the writing process. I was really surprised by Díaz’s admission of a “trial and error” method of writing. He told the audience that it takes him three to four years to write one short story! There have to be better ways to write, but Díaz isn’t about the “machine” model. Nothing is wrong for the thing you love to be really hard, and it is okay to suck. He never has a “that was a great day of writing” moment, and he says that it is just part of the process of creating something good.

Díaz comes at the writing process as a reader first. The average reader is open, more receptive, and way cooler than the writer. Most writers approach writing too fearfully, but they shouldn’t because readers put up with so much shit. Readers excuse flaws, make up for gaps, and stitch plots together. Readers are happy to see you! By beginning to write for READERS, Díaz found his voice. This comes through in This is How You Lose Her.

This event definitely colored my reading of the book. I actually intended to read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Díaz’s Pulitzer-winning book. Díaz chose to read the short story “The Cheater’s Guide to Love,” and I felt like I just had to read This is How You Lose Her.

I hate short stories. Period. I haven’t found many exceptions to this rule. There isn’t enough time to build a credible plot or develop characters in any great detail. Díaz bucks my traditional expectation of the potential of a collection of short stories. He ties each short story of this book together, so much so that he is able to paint an in-depth and broader “big picture.” Each short story follows Yunior, a Dominican immigrant, through the relationships that are in his life from his teens to his mid-life. There so many intertwined levels in this book. Though many of the stories showcase Yunior’s ill-fated relationships with women, Díaz also weaves Yunior’s tumultuous relationship with older brother Rafa, and the cultural expectations and stereotypes of a Dominican man into the mix.

Throughout each story, Yunior experiences far more loss than love; Yunior is simply fated to mourn loss. I loved Yunior because he was a character that looked like you or me: Human, flawed, and brutally real. “I’m not a bad guy. I know how that sounds — defensive, unscrupulous — but it’s true. I’m like everybody else: Weak, full of mistakes, but basically good.” One of my #1 pet peeves is using a difficult childhood to excuse bad behavior. There is no doubt Yunior has had a difficult childhood (we see glimpses of this throughout), but he doesn’t make a big deal out of it or cater to the reader’s pity. The past haunts us, and Yunior is no exception. As a reader, you never hate Yunior, and Díaz’s ability to make a cheater remain likeable is pure genius.

The Spanish slang made the book a little difficult and frustrating to read at times – unfortunately, I don’t speak “Dominican.” I started off trying to translate some of the words and phrases I didn’t know, but I gave up about halfway through the book. I got the gist, and it only added to the book’s overall “real” flavor.

So who was the girl who broke Díaz’s heart? Are parts of This is How You Lose Her or Yunior autobiographical? Díaz says he broke someone else’s. “You know you love someone when you’re proud of the way they break up with you.” Díaz still dreams about her, and according to his mom, the only thing worse than ruining the relationship was becoming a writer.
(less)

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Sep 13, 2012 Maria rated it 5 of 5 stars

Junot Diaz has always been a favorite author of mine, ever since college when he came to the Latin-American lit class I was taking in '98. By that time, I had already read Drown and was on my way to reading Negocios, the Spanish translation of Drown, expertly done by my lit. professor, Mr. Eduardo Lago (even the colloquialisms and the SHUCO-ness, the grit, the sarcasm, the naughtiness, came through, which I know, as an amateur translator myself, is supremely tough to accomplish).

Diaz's language,...more Junot Diaz has always been a favorite author of mine, ever since college when he came to the Latin-American lit class I was taking in '98. By that time, I had already read Drown and was on my way to reading Negocios, the Spanish translation of Drown, expertly done by my lit. professor, Mr. Eduardo Lago (even the colloquialisms and the SHUCO-ness, the grit, the sarcasm, the naughtiness, came through, which I know, as an amateur translator myself, is supremely tough to accomplish).

Diaz's language, dialogue, place, every ounce of passion and work he puts into his writing, it is all fresh, and so it will be when I reread This Is How You Lose Her next year, and the next, and so on. It takes a very talented writer to give his readers a different glimpse of the same character, Yunior, who pops up everywhere, starting with Drown. Every time he shows up, a layer of Yunior is peeled back. He's an onion - everytime you peel back a layer, you feel like crying a little. Notice here that Yunior's girls - his sucias - and his friends revolve around him, but the family stays the same, close to him, living in the back of his head - dando consejos (giving advice), for better or for worse, and sometimes ruling him. The mark of a great author is the characters he crafts, and Diaz is a writer who blows the best of them out of the water on that count.

Diaz has an amazing ability to evoke emotion like few others can - you pull for Yunior and his boys. You pray for Rafa yet, like Mami, are almost constantly disgusted with him at the same time - so you say your prayer for him then hold up your hand like you are going to smack him silly. You want to hug Yunior's girls, tell them you've been there, hold their hands, tell them that even the smartest women can be easily fooled by a charming man. Mami....like many Latina wives and mothers, she makes suffering her claim to fame, sacrifice and guilt trips her job, but she has a sharp mind and is far from a hopeless case. you can never count her out. And Papi, it's like Yunior said in Fiesta, 1980 (a story in Drown) - you just look at his belly button because you're afraid of looking him in the eye.

You know you could never live the way some of those characters live or in the places they live, yet people stronger than you do that every day. When you have hope and faith, so do they. There is a common thread that you don't know about or even willfully ignore until you read Diaz's work.

Yunior. Dios mio. You want to hug him. You see through the exterior and you want to tell him it's all OK. You want to yell at him and knock some sense into him. And like one of his girls in Cheater's Guide to Love, you love his mind, which is an expert on almost everything - from words you have to look up that he casually slips into conversation/narration to sci-fi references you also have to Wikipedia. Yet you empathize with him. You throw up your hands because you wish he'd just come clean. And you want to be there when he does.

And then the sadness when the book ends, even though you know you'll see it again, is palpable. ~~sigh~~

I've read a few of the stories in This Is How You Lose Her in the New Yorker during the past few years. The ripped-out pages I saved in a portfolio just in case I never saw those stories published again. But even though those magazine pages, for the most part, contain the same words as the corresponding stories in the book, it's like the stories were brand new. Again, blows everyone away on sheer ability.

And Diaz, you want to tell him, "You did good, hombre. You did real good." (less)

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Sep 14, 2012 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, stories-and-essays, oh-its-love

Holy cannoli on a flying Popsicle stick.

I never got around to reading Oscar Wao mostly because I never got around to it and a little because I was concerned that I simply wouldn't be able to relate to a story about a nerdy teenage boy living in what Diaz himself describes as the ghetto. But, I heard that it was good (you know, in that Pulitzer-winning way) and then there was increased buzz around this latest collection of short stories. Somehow, I was the first person on the library reserve lis...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc, short-stories

Diaz writes some beautiful sentences, but I didn't care even a little about Yunior and how he had to do yoga to get over a breakup. Also, I would've liked it more if any of the female characters had more than one dimension. But again, pretty words all in a row.

46 likes · like · see review

Dec 07, 2012 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, short-stories, modern-lit

Junot Diaz brings back Yunior from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao as the narrator for most of the stories but leaves out the Dominican history and the geek references. Instead we get to read about heartbreak, infidelity, remorse, alienation and cancer.

You know, the stuff that makes life worth living.

Taken as a whole, these powerful stories give us a history for Yunior as he grows up in Jersey as a Dominican immigrant dealing with his family and his tendency to cheat on the women in his li...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Jodi rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ll12, audiobook, 2012-audiobooks

Junot Diaz reads his work, shortlisted for either the Pulitzer or the National Book Award. While I enjoyed the second half of the book much more than the first half, and Diaz totally understands his work and his characters, I found the characters incredibly distasteful. The amount of graphic sex talk, profanity, and ill-treatment (though not in abuse) of women is nauseating. If this is an example of Dominican men, it's a cultural issue that will not be solved anytime soon. The reading was painfu...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Alena rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

I have had difficulty approaching a review of this book. I’m not even sure how to classify it – short stories or a novel? The bottom line is that I liked listening to it. (The audio is version is narrated by the author.) The language and immediacy of Yunior’s emotions really moved me. I felt I was reading a viewpoint of the world that I don’t get to hear often, so in that way it felt very fresh.

But, I don’t like Yunior. He’s a cheat – the lowest of the low. He’s also the center of all but one of...more I have had difficulty approaching a review of this book. I’m not even sure how to classify it – short stories or a novel? The bottom line is that I liked listening to it. (The audio is version is narrated by the author.) The language and immediacy of Yunior’s emotions really moved me. I felt I was reading a viewpoint of the world that I don’t get to hear often, so in that way it felt very fresh.

But, I don’t like Yunior. He’s a cheat – the lowest of the low. He’s also the center of all but one of these stories – intelligent, but dishonest; lonely, but cold; searching, but blind.

In fact, I wanted to despise him, but Diaz writes him well enough that I stopped short of hatred. In fact, I felt a little heartbroken for him even as I cringed at his language and behavior. Yunior says about himself:

“In another universe I might have come out OK”
and
“I’m so alone that every day is like eating my own heart”

Compelling, right? Then, in the next moment, he’s describing Alma this way, “An ass that could pull the moon out of orbit.” I just never knew how to feel about him and the broken world he inhabits.

And, I have to admit, the foul language and vulgarity were hard to listen too. I think when I read the printed word I must skim profanity to some degree because I often found myself cringing at the crudeness of the men in these stories. Even when Diaz throws in Spanish words and phrases (which he does quite often without any translation other than context) I had the feeling he was swearing.

So I’d start to dislike the book a little bit and then Diaz would reel me back in with such beauty that I felt my breath catch. I especially liked the one story told from a woman’s perspective and the honest beauty of “Miss Laura.”

“There were a lot of middle-aged types living alone, shipwrecked by all kinds of catastrophes.”

Miss Laura is a sort of continuation of the earlier story of how Yunior deals (or doesn’t) with his brother Rafa’s death. It deals with Yunior’s inability to face the real world and his love affair with a much older neighbor woman. To me, this is the strongest story in the collection.

I haven’t read Diaz’s book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and, honestly, I’m not in a hurry to pick it up after finishing this book. But I do admire his in-your-face style and bits of beauty.

“The half-life of love is forever. Sometimes a start is all we get.”
(less)

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Jan 06, 2013 Cheryl rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: e-book, fiction, literature, literary, america, short-stories

This is how you lost me. You gave me flat characters powered by preoccupations with sex and body parts, especially bushy hair, peppered the prose with Spanish words that were often slangy or derogatory, and allowed superficial, albeit energetic, descriptions of shallow thoughtlessness to masquerade as gritty literary style.

I am puzzled as to why I feel so far off the general opinion of the literary pundits who widely praise this book. I do wonder if it is because of my utter lack of exposure to...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012, recommended

It’s impressive when an author writes gritty, contemporary stories that immediately immerse you in another culture. Ones that burst from the page, splattered with Spanish phrases, nasty language and colorful descriptions. In his new collection of stories, This is How You Lose Her, Junot Diaz writes about the Latino, mostly Dominican, culture in an honest poetic way. Often I don’t want to read short stories without a reflective break but in this case I couldn’t stop once I started. Most of the st...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Barbara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Yup, I've said it before. I'll say it again. I don't know how he gets away with the shit he does, but Junot's writing just does it for me. He's my (contemporary) literary crush, I guess you could say...

Like his first collection of stories, Drown, he doesn't paint a very pretty picture of the Dominican-American experience but it's always real. Always witty. And all that "play-uh" talk is laced with a vulnerability that no one else can match.

I admit, it felt a bit like "been there, done that" with...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Kathleen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, read-in-2012, short-stories

Really, ridiculously well written, as one would expect from Diaz, I particularly like the flawless way he interweaves stories of love, death, and loss. The artful connection among the stories made this book more difficult to put down than an ordinary collection of short stories.

I recommend this book to anyone who liked The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao.

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Oct 09, 2012 Arria rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm a big fan of Junot. I own all 3 of his books and love when he has a story featured in The New Yorker (which is how I discovered him, many moons ago, in high school).
"This Is How You Lose Her" is another winner. Diaz has a way with words, that much is certain. Each story has it's own little gem and specialness to it.
This book is comprised of 9 short stories, most of them intertwined, linking the main character, Yunior, with his dealings with women, his dickhead brother, Rafa, who is arrogan...more I'm a big fan of Junot. I own all 3 of his books and love when he has a story featured in The New Yorker (which is how I discovered him, many moons ago, in high school).
"This Is How You Lose Her" is another winner. Diaz has a way with words, that much is certain. Each story has it's own little gem and specialness to it.
This book is comprised of 9 short stories, most of them intertwined, linking the main character, Yunior, with his dealings with women, his dickhead brother, Rafa, who is arrogant and cancer-stricken; their mother, who has the patience of a saint dealing with his Rafa, and there is a bit of a theme of cheating in the stories. Yunior seems to want to be a better man and stay away from the infidelity gene that has touched both his jerky, cold father and womanizing, unempathetic brother. The Dominican background and stories color this book all the more for the better, as usual, and give it that "glitter" that Junot knows how to lace through with some awesome prose. It can be beautiful and sad and funny and you are endeared to Yunior who is navigating the waters of the female species, only to disappoint and be disappointed (in both himself and his actions). It's almost like he just can't win. Mostly by his own choices and decisions. It's kind of heartbreaking.
My favorite story is "Alma." Just the way the words slice together and how he describes her and how it details so concisely a sort of amazingness, a charm, all to come snowballing down like an avalanche--it's really beautiful. "Miss Lora" was also another fave. It follows Yunior who begins sleeping with an older woman while cheating on his girlfriend Paloma. "The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars" start out this book's journey. Yunior has cheated on his sweet girlfriend Magda which she discovers because his sidepiece informs her about it. Yunior invites Magda on a trip to the Dominican Republic for the purpose of rekindling their now-infidelity-broken romance. "Nilda" is the story of Rafa's down-and-out girlfriend, with whom Yunior is completely in love with and has to watch on the sidelines, being emotionally tormented and treated badly by his "mujeriego" brother who only cares about himself. "Flaca" is the story of Yunior dating a "whitegirl" that he knows he will never love. "Otravida, Otravez" follows the story of a woman involved with a married man who has left his wife behind on the Island--and her uncertainty over her relationship with said married man. How she loves him in this sad way yet does not trust him and can't relax enough to enjoy their relationship, always wondering if he's going to go back to his wife.
"The Pura Principle" paints a great picture of sick Rafa (this particular story was described in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) and in "Invierno," you feel for Yunior's mother, who has newly arrived to the Unites States with her sons and it's sad how lonely she is trying to adjust to this solitary life in a new cold world, so far removed from everything in the Dominican Republic. "A Cheater's Guide to Love" is the culmination of all of the stories. Yunior has cheated on his fiancé and regrets it deeply after she dumps him and the story follows him through the years of trying to put his life back together, of feeling like he is never going to find someone better, and in true Junot fashion, there is a melancholic enlightenment that the protagonist experiences. A realization that maybe, this is as good as it gets. Maybe he did have the best and screwed it up.
Women always have a way of disappearing on Yunior, becoming ghosts never to be seen again.
I wouldn't say this is a book about "love." It's more a book about love just within the grasp of one's hand, slipping through fingers, gently touching the skin, just long enough to know it's there, and then suddenly, it's not. It eludes. And sometimes, there's only yourself to blame.
Junot nails it. Again. (less)

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Sep 28, 2012 Kellie Lambert rated it 3 of 5 stars

Released September 11, I heard a a lot of hype for this book by Junot Diaz. I wanted to see--what is all the fuss about? Why did this jump to the top of the NY Bestseller List?

I think I can tell you. In my best bookish librarian voice: the writing is raw. Eye-opening. It shifts between several different love stories, some unrequited, some failed...some still standing. I felt as if the narrator was sitting with me on the stoop of some NY slum, telling me about this girlfriend. Or this story that...more

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May 09, 2013 João Carlos rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“É assim Que a Perdes” são contos que exploram magistralmente as ligações entre o amor e a perda, utilizando uma linguagem que alterna entre o hilariante e o dramático, revelando o protagonista Yunior um sentido de humor singular e inebriante, que nos vai cativando numa sensação de intimidade e carinho.
Com estes contos Díaz capta as conexões entre o passado e o presente das personagens, processando pequenos fragmentos das suas vidas e das suas vivências, entre acontecimentos que se desdobram em...more “É assim Que a Perdes” são contos que exploram magistralmente as ligações entre o amor e a perda, utilizando uma linguagem que alterna entre o hilariante e o dramático, revelando o protagonista Yunior um sentido de humor singular e inebriante, que nos vai cativando numa sensação de intimidade e carinho.
Com estes contos Díaz capta as conexões entre o passado e o presente das personagens, processando pequenos fragmentos das suas vidas e das suas vivências, entre acontecimentos que se desdobram em ciclos e padrões, mais ou menos homogéneos na génese comportamental de todos os intervenientes.
O infiel Yunior utiliza uma linguagem violenta, reduzindo as mulheres a “objectos” descartáveis de desejo e luxúria, herdando do seu pai e do seu irmão, uma visão odiosa do sexo feminino. No conto “Menina Lora” confirma-se tal evidência: “Tanto o teu pai como o teu irmão eram uns sucios… O teu irmão não era melhor… Tinhas nutrido a esperança de que o gene não te tivesse apanhado, que pulasse uma geração, mas é evidente que te estavas a enganar a ti próprio. Quem sai aos seus…”
A sequência dos contos não obedece à sua cronologia narrativa, mas antes a uma estrutura fragmentada de acontecimentos, aparentemente aleatórios mas que se vão progressivamente interligando, conferindo uma homogeneidade singular.
Destaco dois dos melhores contos: “Otravida, Otravez” em que Díaz revela Yasmin, amante do seu pai, numa história comovente e trágica, reveladora da violência exercida em relação às mulheres e que funciona como um antídoto à linguagem sexista e violenta de Yunior e “Invierno” que mais não é do que um relato devastador e sentimental da emigração dominicana para os Estados Unidos da América, seguindo as “lutas” de Yunior com a linguagem e as suas tentativas de estabelecer amizade com as outras crianças.
Um maravilhoso livro de contos com a personagem de Yunior a “funcionar” como “alter ego” do escritor Junot Díaz, numa escrita comovente e emocional, tendo como base a infidelidade masculina e a integração emigratória nos Estados Unidos da América. Imperdível…
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Sep 21, 2012 David Dacosta rated it 3 of 5 stars

Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

How does an author follow up a Pulitzer Prize winning novel? For one thing, you’d hope that under no circumstances they would attempt to replicate the work. Junot Diaz has come full circle and returned to his writing roots. Like his debut collection of short stories Drown, Diaz’s third literary outing, This Is How You Lose Her, is also comprised of short stories, but these revolve around the love life of Yunior, the character who surfaced in Drown and the author’s break...more Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

How does an author follow up a Pulitzer Prize winning novel? For one thing, you’d hope that under no circumstances they would attempt to replicate the work. Junot Diaz has come full circle and returned to his writing roots. Like his debut collection of short stories Drown, Diaz’s third literary outing, This Is How You Lose Her, is also comprised of short stories, but these revolve around the love life of Yunior, the character who surfaced in Drown and the author’s breakout novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. This Is How... can best be described as a spinoff. The unapologetic use of the word nigger and the raw sexual references that Diaz has become known for are also back for a second occasion.

Short story collections are usually hit and miss. You’ll find yourself reading one story and be completely engrossed and not want it to end. Then the next moment you’ll question the very inclusion of another story. This Is How follows this pattern. The book begins with the story The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, a tale of infidelity and karmic justice. Yunior has a bleeding heart girlfriend in Magdalena; forgiving, in attendance every Sunday for Spanish Mass, super sensitive and according the author, “Takes to hurt the way water takes to paper.” Much to Yunior’s chagrin, Magda, as she’s affectionately known, receives an anonymous letter from a girl Yunior has been secretly seeing behind her back. The relationship between Yunior and Magda subsequently takes a turn for the worse after this revelation.

Alma ends almost as soon as in begins. Yunior is found to be a cheater by yet another girlfriend; Alma, summarized as ‘a comic-book-reading alternatinas with a big Dominican ass.’ The four page story, despite its abbreviated length, manages to paint a detailed portrait of a young academic minded Latina, who’s adored for the dimensions of her plump backside, and ultimately betrayed by her philandering partner. Yunior receives the brunt of Alma’s ire for his acts of indiscretion.

Readers are introduced to Yunior’s Cancer plagued and equally antagonistic older brother, Rafa, in the story Nilda. The Pura Principle revists the plight of Yunior`s sibling in an expanded treatment. Here we are given a clear glimpse into their family dynamics. Due to her initial fears of not being able to conceive, Yunior`s mother regards her first offspring Rafa as a miracle child of sorts and following his birth he instantly becomes the apple of her eye. However, this maternal bond is now being threatened by each irrational decision of Rafa`s while in the throes of the Big C; namely his choice to date, Pura, an opportunistic Dominican mother of two young children desperately seeking citizenship in America.

In the end it really doesn’t matter what type of book Diaz decided to write as the follow up to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And despite the fact that This Is How... is not a novel, it will still draw unfair comparisons to its predecessor. I’m neither unimpressed nor blown away by This Is How. It certainly deserves credit for its unique construction. Diaz is one of Caribbean literature’s most fearless voices in terms of his use of language. His absolute disregard for the notion of offensive content is refreshing. You’ll either love his style or be repulsed by it. There’s no real middle ground.

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Feb 04, 2013 Ryan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is How You Lose Her
Junot Diaz
Read it in hardback, bitterly short at 213 pages.

I had intended to read Diaz's Pulitzer, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but the local bookstore was unable to locate the copy their computer promised was in stock. Instead, this sounded very interesting as well and I might as well chum up and know what I am getting myself into before visiting 'Wao.' Diaz has written a host of short stories but only one full novel and what a novel it must have been since it g...more

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Mar 22, 2013 Karel rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: srzbznz

a.k.a The Various Sexcapades of Yunior and Other Dominican Men.

I can praise this. I can even say that it shows you a more accurate representation of what love is than a hell lot of books out there.

But I won't.

Yunior, so funny and eloquent in Oscar Wao, is only amusing at best here. From start to end, it's just an unemotional, cold, and distant narration of who he fucked and who he cheated on and what he did to win them back - only to lapse back into the habit like gamblers and alcoholics.

There...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Chicago Heights Public Library rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1-library-reviews

I really like Junot Dias as a writer. His strength is in having completely different writing styles based on the perspective of the character he is writing for/as. This is why I only gave this book three stars. The book is a series of short stories focusing on Yunior, a recurring character throughout many of his books. However, the perspective is almost always that of Yunior, a brash, foul mouthed, macho, but complex author character. There are a couple exceptions, like that of a middle aged imm...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Melanie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

I won this book from the lovely people over at Dewey's 24-hour read-a-thon, and it wasn't quite what I was expecting. I didn't realise it was a series of short stories, expecting more of a Love Actually inter-connected thing to be going on. And if I had...well, I tend not to read short stories because I don't like the constant switching and changing.

But not all the stories were unrelated: most of them were about Yunior and various relationships he has throughout his life, though not in chronolog...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Elizabeth (Soluna) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reads

A couple of years ago I saw Mr. Diaz speak to a group of (mostly) college students. He talked about his explorations of love and infidelity. He was exploring how people, even those in a good, loving relationship, screw it up through infidelity and lack of commitment. It was an interesting talk, and it is evident now that Mr. Diaz was in the process of creating this work.

This is How You Lose Her is gritty, raw, and painful--particularly painful in its exploration of the pain of love--the yearnin...more

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Oct 30, 2012 Aaron (Typographical Era) rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, nba2012, nook

NOTE: Goodreads is now owned by Amazon and as such I will no longer be posting any text from my reviews here. A link to the full review is provided below:

http://www.opinionless.com/book-revie...

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Jan 07, 2013 Martha rated it 5 of 5 stars

Sometimes a voice in literature is so strong, so distinct, so able to give you a shot of life with all of its warts, embarrassments, and glorious highs (I'm thinking Annie Proulx, for one), that it blows you away every moment from start to finish. This book of loosely connected short stories by Junot Diaz has that quality. I was fortunate to get an audio version from the library. The stories are read by the author and he included interludes of Latino music that fed into the mood and ethnicity o...more

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Oct 19, 2012 g rated it 3 of 5 stars

There is something appealing and heartbreaking about Díaz's nerdy, self-indulgent, two-timing, Dominican Don Juan, Yunior, who is always yearning after someone he can't have or has already intimated he doesn't really want by cheating on her. I really wish I remembered The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao better, because there are character overlaps. This short story collection, mostly featuring Yunior at various ages, shares the same warmth, humor, energy, and effervescence, but I can alrea...more

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Feb 10, 2013 afra rated it 3 of 5 stars

Leave it to Junot Diaz to write a book about a tiguere's wounded, vulnerable side.

Having completely loved The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I was hoping to feel the same way about this book. I enjoyed mucking through Diaz' colorful Dominican-Spanglish prose just as much as I had before, but I found this book to be less satisfying than his previous one. I think my frustration with the book lay less in its style and message, and more in the fact that I simply disliked the main character and gr...more

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May 08, 2013 Janet rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I got an excerpt of this last year at BEA and met Junot Diaz who was so charming that I bought a hardcopy of this book at Bookshop Santa Cruz. Although it is a slim volume, I put off reading it and finally thought that it would probably be better in audio. I find most anything with accents, or foreign language is better in audio and that was certainly the case with this. I would heartily recommend the audio to anyone contemplating reading this, many advantages not the least of which is the cool...more

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About Junot Díaz

Junot Díaz is a contemporary Dominican-American writer. He moved to the USA with his parents at age six, settling in New Jersey. Central to Díaz's work is the duality of the immigrant experience. He is the first Dominican-born man to become a major author in the United States.

Díaz is creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Fictio...more

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“The half-life of love is forever.” — 125 people liked it

“And that's when I know it's over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it's the end.” — 118 people liked it

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