The Dirty Girls Social Club (Dirty Girls, #1) in The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Sep 04, 2011 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, novels, contemporary, chick-lit, romance, ultimate-reading-list

A blurb from New York claims this reads "like the Hispanic version of Waiting to Exhale." I can see similarities in this tale of close girlfriends, but I hated Waiting to Exhale, while I loved Dirty Girls Social Club. I loved how this book recognized and reveled in the diversity of Hispanics. That they are white--and black--and only sometimes brown. That besides Catholic, "Latinas come in 'Jew'" as well as Born-Again Christian. That "Hispanic" embraces very different cultures from Old Spain to I A blurb from New York claims this reads "like the Hispanic version of Waiting to Exhale." I can see similarities in this tale of close girlfriends, but I hated Waiting to Exhale, while I loved Dirty Girls Social Club. I loved how this book recognized and reveled in the diversity of Hispanics. That they are white--and black--and only sometimes brown. That besides Catholic, "Latinas come in 'Jew'" as well as Born-Again Christian. That "Hispanic" embraces very different cultures from Old Spain to Indio to African and various mixes thereof. That some are Republican and not inevitably Democrat. And that those from a Caribbean background who enjoy maduros and tostones are enjoying a cuisine very different from the Mexican food you'd find in the American South West.

Valdes points all this up through the "Buena Sucias"--a group of six friends who met at Boston University who meet twice a year to keep their bonds strong. There's Amber, a California Chicana and musician who is all into the "Mexica Movement" that tries to return to "Aztec" roots; Sara, a Cuban Jew and stay at home wife and mother; Elizabeth, a network television reporter who is a black born in Columbia, Usnavys, a Puerto Rican/Dominican who rose to riches from Boston's projects; Rebecca from New Mexico, a magazine entrepreneur who snootily emphasizes her Spanish origins--and then there's Lauren.

Lauren is the first character we meet, the first voice in a series of first person narrators--all done in present tense in a conversational manner that makes you feel that each is intimately whispering into your ear. It's a little scary how easily I identified with the abrasive "know-it-all" Lauren. Like her I'm half-Hispanic, and with my spotty Spanish and light skin I too have sometimes felt like a "fraud" presenting myself as "Latina." But there's so much of the Sucias' experiences I could identify with and recognized. So many lines where I wanted to shout YES--this. Beyond that, my heart broke for Elizabeth and Sara, and I'm surprised how much I grew to like Rebecca and Amber. Diametric opposites in so many ways and yet alike in how both struck me at first as poseurs--both irritated me at first acquaintance.

I don't know that this novel is so intrinsically good in terms of the writing I'd be so impressed if this was yet another excursion into frothy Upper Class WASPs usually inhabited by chicklit. The book is episodic in structure, and the reviewer that says it rather buys into happiness means having a sig other by your side is right. Yes, much of the plot is predictable yet farfetched. And I have to agree with yet another reviewer who said it was a bit too convenient how the six fell so neatly into different demographic groups of "Hispanic." I also found it hard to credit that portrait of a sweet, sensitive genius drug dealer. But the novel held up enough of a mirror for me to feel right at home with these six (not that home is always a comfortable place to be) and it's not just a celebration of diversity, but of friendship. I loved the time I spent with this group of friends. ...more

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Sep 17, 2007 Joanie rated it liked it

Book about a group of friends who met in college and still get together on a regular basis, the call themselves the "sucias" or dirty girls. Some funny parts, good chick book. ...more

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Oct 28, 2007 Elizabeth rated it it was amazing

This is an awesome book about a group of friends, they are so different in many ways but are still there for each other regardless of it.
FANTASTIC BOOK!!!

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