num_pages: 321
description: There is more life packed on each page of Ordinary Girls than some lives hold in a lifetime. Julia Alvarez Ordinary Girls is a fierce beautiful and unflinching memoir from a wildly talented debut author. While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach Jaquira Daz found herself caught between extremes: as her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia she was surrounded by the love of her friends; as she longed for a family and home she found instead a life upended by violence. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Ricos history of colonialism every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Daz triumphantly maps a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be.With a story reminiscent of Tara Westovers Educated Roxane Gays Hunger and Terese Marie Mailhots Heart Berries Jaquira Daz delivers a memoir that reads as electrically as a novel.
language: English
title: Ordinary Girls
publisher: Algonquin Books