Bodega Dreams: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)Ernesto Quinonez' debut novel, Bodega Dreams, breaks through stereotypes, and enlightens the reader to the numerous human elements that make up El Barrio. Nevertheless, his purpose is not to explain the socio-economic group dynamic that makes up contempoary East Harlem. His purpose is to tell a good story. Unfortunately, I was expecting more of the former. As an Anglo who works in a Hispanic community, I thought the book would give me more insight into how Nuyoricans view themselves within New York's Latin American Community. For instance, the reality of inter-Hispanic relations is more complex than the author lets on. Although the subject is broached (inside the precinct house), Quinonez leaves it at it's barely scratched surface.
Although these expectations were not satisfied, my curiosity as a reader of a good novel was. Quinonez' hero, Chico, doesn't take a holier than thou attitude toward the seedier characters he meets, but accepts them for who they are: hoods, drug dealers, mafiosos, and the lowlife attorney, Navarro.
The descriptions of El Barrio are first rate. The reader gets an insider's view of Quinonez' home turf: the sights, sounds and smells that make up his neighborhood. What the author fails to do is explain why Chino's love, Blanca, a devout Pentecostal, falls in love with him and gets married at such a young age, despite his continued association with the local drug pusher, Sapo. Perhaps the courtship was edited out of the original manuscript. And although Chino seems to be a decent, inteligent fellow, how these two became married while full time college students is never satisfactorily answered. The plot was interesting, pitting the black and white concepts of right and wrong against the myriad grays that represent the realities of survival and prosperity in El Barrio. The characters of Chino and Sapo were well developed, but the lesser characters were one-sided. The social conscience of Willie Bodega, the Puerto Rican Social Activist turned drug dealer, was quite unbelievable. The dialogue was interesting, and often humorous, but oftentimes highly predictable. However, the climax was somewhat surprising, and did catch me off guard.All told, I found this to be excellent debut novel, and look forward to Quinonez' next book.

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