How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
A Novel
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4.3 • 70 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE · A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NOTABLE BOOK · REVIEWED ON THE FRONT COVER
From GMA BOOK CLUB PICK and WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana, an electrifying new novel about a woman who has lost everything but the chance to finally tell her story
“Will have you LAUGHING line after line...Cruz AIMS FOR THE HEART, and fires.” —Los Angeles Times
"An endearing portrait of a FIERCE, FUNNY woman." —The Washington Post
Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of twelve sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her alternately biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and, eventually, what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.
Structurally inventive and emotionally kaleidoscopic, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is Angie Cruz’s most ambitious and moving novel yet, and Cara is a heroine for the ages.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Dominicana author Angie Cruz’s fourth novel introduces us to Cara Romero, an opinionated and determined middle-aged Dominican woman who’s referred to a workforce reentry program after she loses her factory job. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water—a play on a Spanish saying that roughly means making mountains out of molehills—is told as a series of monologues that Cara launches into during her 12 sessions with her career counselor. It’s great being a fly on the wall and hearing about the big and little dramas unfolding in Cara’s Washington Heights apartment building as its inhabitants contend with gentrification, the Great Recession, family conflict, and aging. Although Cruz’s heroine has experienced unthinkable tragedy and trauma in her life, she remains gregarious and kindhearted. This fast read celebrates the resilience of immigrant communities.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cruz (Dominicana) returns with a wry story of the Latinx community in New York City's gentrifying Washington Heights in the late 2000s. Cara Romero, a single woman in her 50s, is unexpectedly jobless after the factory where she worked shuts down. The state's Senior Workforce Program provides her with meager benefits in exchange for attending weekly meetings with a job counselor. During the sessions, Cara's monologues range widely, addressing her history of abuse, heartache, and affairs. She knows she has a tendency to get off topic ("When someone asks me about mangoes I talk about yuca," Cara tells the counselor). Cruz intersperses the sessions with Cara's questionnaires, job skill tests, and eviction notices, all underscoring the unjustness and absurdity of the economic shifts that have upended the lives of Cara and her neighbors. Cruz expertly avoids idealizing her indomitable protagonist into a flat victim, although not much of a plot emerges from the monologues—sometimes Cara just prattles on. However, readers who persist through the occasional narrative snag will be rewarded with a tender and quintessentially American portrait.
Customer Reviews
Great Book
I really enjoyed this book. It was raw and honest. You felt like you were listening to your mom, tia, or nana. It kept me wanting more. I recommend the audiobook as well. Whoever decided to include background noise, such as a chattering office, genius! The reader was the perfect voice. I really felt like I was whenever she was or sitting on her couch with her.
I felt like cara was telling me a story
This book felt so real. I read it in one sitting.
Great story
This book is a great story telling book. Highly recommend it.