Book Review: Becoming Latina in 10 Easy Steps
On the suggestion of a light-hearted read for June’s book club choice, the members of the book club to which I belong chose Becoming Latina in 10 Easty Steps by Lara Rios over a more somber novel. The premise sounds promising, a late-twenties woman from a Mexican family (which has been in the states several generations) finds out that her father is actually a mysterious white man and she starts to question her dedication to her culture and even her connections to her family. To remedy this, the protagonist, Marcela, decides she will rededicate herself to her roots. So she makes a list of 10 things to make her self more Latina; this includes getting involved in causes, mentoring a Latina youth, learning to cook Mexican food and visiting Mexico, as well as more dubious aims such as finding a Mexican guy to date and eventually marry. Marcela makes all these plans without really giving much thought to them and what they will require of her. Mostly she approaches the aims by breaking out her check-book, shelling out for private cooking lessons, making donations to charities, but when she really becomes personally involved in the steps on her list, all hell breaks loose and Marcela’s relationship issues, not her ethnic identity, become the driving force. The ending is predictable, with Marcela coming to huge revelations about herself and how she views being Latina and her family.
The story is set up diary style, a la Bridge Jones’ Diary but not as clever or well done. Like Bridget Jones, Marcela makes some amazingly stupid decisions, some of which are ridiculously dangerous that serve as poor plot devices. Going on a date with a gang member, really, when does this ever sound like a good idea? The book is easy to read, completely conversational in style. In my opinion, too conversational. Some times the prose gets hard to read because it’s so bland. There’s no excitement in word choice, no descriptions that make you feel like you’re in the story. One thing I didn’t know when we agreed on this book was that it really is a romance novel. I generally avoid romance novels because I don’t find them very interesting, this was definitely better than most romance novels (though I don’t have much basis for comparison). This is unfortunately not a G-rated book and therefore probably not appropriate for the younger teenage girls that could benefit most from its attempted message. For more mature ladies, the more intimate passages are more annoying than enthralling, a distraction from the story. Though it hits on racism as experienced by Latinos in America, it unapologetically embraces the racism those same Latinos frequently exhibit. I think the author missed a really good chance to make an important point about racism among different people, but excused or embraced it instead. But in the end, it’s not that kind of book, and doesn’t pretend to be. If you enjoy romance novels, this might be an enjoyable beach read, if you’re not a romance novel fan, I say skip it and save yourself some disappointment.
I had hoped that, as the title suggested, this was a how-to book. As that’s not the case, I’ll let Sinead read tis post as she’s a chick-lit lover.
If only it were that easy. I wish there was a self-help book “How to become a scientist in ten easy steps/”