Eating it up

I am reading "Playing with Boys" by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez and I'm just eating it up, this, of course, considering that I'm a slow reader in my second language (OK, I'm also kinda slow in Spanish, but in English at least I have a bit of an excuse for it. Which is the reason why I'm fonder of short stories, because in a book, by the time I get to the last few pages I have to go back to the beginning if there's something super crucial to remember that I have already forgotten because it took me so dang long to get to those final pages. But some books are just so good and capture in a way I can't not read them, like the last one I read "For One More Day" which was amazing! And I thought I wouldn't like it-- OK, enough for the parenthesis...).

I bought "Playing with Boys" last year. After reading the "Dirty Girls Social Club" (another book I almost didn't give a chance to) I decided to get this one, I think I bought it about the time the paperback edition came out, because I got in on a sale at the bookstore by the mall. I ended up loving those sucias from the moment I read how Usnavys got her name. That was pretty great! Very nice, Mrs. Valdes-Rodriguez captured me with those few lines and made me read the book and then buy the other one. Anyway... (I think I got sidetracked again), I was going to say that I tried to start reading "Playing with Boys" when I fist got it, but for some reason I didn't like it at first, so I put it down. It might also have been that I couldn't fit any pleasure reading time in between my textbooks, work, projects, art work, and leadership activities at the UA. But this time I just picked it up and started, and I think the characters (for far) are fun and I'm liking them. And I have to say, I really got hooked when I read about Olivia and how she lived some of the war in El Salvador. It's a long story of why I love to read about the war so much. I think it has to do with the fact I sometimes feel empty as if I had to have all that knowledge running through my veins, but really can't because I was just born in the middle of the conflict (Though I have to mention at this point that the misspelling of Perquin in the second mention of it in the novel was a real turn off, not that I'm a perfect speller, but it's my country... maybe if it had been somewhere else I wouldn't have noticed, but Perquin.... I'm still not over it.) I also got interested in Olivia because she wanted to write about her mom. Just about two months ago, at the beginning of June when I was at the AAUW student conference in DC with the student advisory council chicas and Jenn asked what our first book would be about I told them it would be about my mom... and I told them why. I didn't start Tar Baby yet, I figured I'd focus on one book at the time, because these aren't textbooks dang it! I could read those from here and there and be fine with it, but I want to enjoy my reading more now and have time to.... taste it :)