Friday, January 27, 2012
Post #1
The first thing that I noticed when I looked at the book was the cover. It was very different than what I was expecting. I was expecting something to be relating to either girls or Hispanic Decent. During our discussion in class we broke down the title of the book, to get ideas of what to expect. On the cover of the book I received was a very confusing picture. It is a picture of a tree growing in a soda bottle, with hummingbirds around it. Even after reading the back cover and some of the reviews there did not seem to be a correlation between the story and the front cover. It should be very interesting to see how the two seemingly different topics are connected. Another thing that stuck out to me was the family tree near the front cover. It is not like most of the other family trees I have seen. This one does not seem to include everyone in their family, also it includes what their nicknames are and where they are located. Also there are some gaps and apparently the Garcias and the de la Torres are related by the Conquistadors, but then they marry each other later on along in the story. Something that really stood out to me was the 3 parts of the book. Each part covers a different time period. The thing that is odd is that the years go in reverse. For instance part 1 is 1989-1972. Usually dates go in chronological order. This in the story is reversed. This leads me to believe that events will be told in reverse order. This will probably be very confusing because stories make sense when they go in order. It could also be a good literary device working backwards through time. It has the potential to be good, but I have a feeling if that is the case, the story goes in reverse order, then I will be confused and I will not like it.
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I found your response very interesting. I have a newer copy of the book, so the picture on the front is different. I found the picture you described very interesting. The picture on the front cover of the book I received was of a girl's legs, and she seemed to be dancing. I wonder how these two pictures could both accurately describe or represent the book. In addition, I had many of the same questions as you did regarding the family tree. I thought the family tree was kind of disorganized and hard to read. You did bring up a good question when you mentioned that dates usually go in chronological order, and here, that is not the case. Maybe the book will be back tracking? That would be rather interesting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your analysis of the cover page and the reading of the first several pages. I thought it was interesting that you picked up on the family tree as well and how it was different. What also stuck out to me was the fact that the book was written backwards as well, maybe it will all come together in the end of the novel. I found that the first few pages of the novel were confusing and didn't make much sense. Did you feel that some of the text was hard to follow? I also have the same cover of the book and I felt that maybe the cover could resemble how maybe the Garcia family is keeping one last bit of their "accents" (represented by the one flower in the bottle). Overall I feel that this book won't be able to keep my interest.
ReplyDeleteYou made several good points Cj, i agree with you that the front and back covers of this story don't see to have anything in common with one another. I found this interesting, because I'm guessing there will be an explanation some time through out the story as to why the cover is a girl dancing. It could possibly a hobby of the Garcia girls or something they've done through at their lives. I also agree with you on on the dates not being in chronological order. This may potentially be how the story is told which could stir up a lot of confusion for the readers, but it could make it an interesting and possibly refreshing new way of reading a story. It could even make more sense if we understand the story from the end to the beginning depending on the complications in the story. I am not sure if i can make the assumption that i will dislike this story because i haven't read enough of the novel to make a fair judgement. Though, i do see where you get the idea of this becoming a potentially more difficult story to read.
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