Dirty Girls Social Club [Poche]

The Dirty Girls Social Club closely resembles Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale: a handful of young women seek real love and job satisfaction. Unlike McMillan, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez has completely thrown out any literary pretensions whatsoever, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Dirty Girls is a fun, easy, ultimately charming read, not least because the girls themselves are so appealing. Six Latina women become fast friends at Boston University and thereafter meet as a group every few months. Now in their late twenties, they're each on the cusp of the life they want. The novel is narrated in turn by each woman. Feisty Lauren has a column at the Boston Globe, but can't help falling for losers; ghetto-elegant Usnavys is trying to find a man to match her own earning power and expensive tastes; uptight Rebecca is a successful magazine publisher and an unsuccessful wife; beautiful TV anchor Elizabeth has a secret; Sara leads a Martha-Stewart-perfect life as a homemaker; and Amber is a hopeful rock musician in L.A.

The novel works because Valdes-Rodriguez has compassion for her characters; each is faulted, but none is culpable. She also has an eye for the telling detail, as when Rebecca tries to befriend her white husband's stuffy family: "His sister took step classes with me and we shopped for clothes together on Newbury Street and went to the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum one afternoon with Au Bon Pain sandwiches in our handbags." Something about those sandwiches makes the whole enterprise seem more poignant. On the down side, Valdes-Rodriguez is so eager to make things work out for her ladies, her writing sometimes beggars belief. Men actually say things like "Swear to me you're happily married, and I'll stop pursuing you." Yes, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is, in fact, the Latina Terry McMillan. That is, if McMillan were a slighty guiltier pleasure. --Claire Dederer --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Valdes-Rodriguez's debut novel delivers on the promise of its sexy title, offering six lively, irreverent characters: the sucias ("dirty girls" in Spanish), who have been friends since college and get together twice a year to catch up. The book opens at just such a meeting, six years after they've graduated from Boston University, and takes us through an eventful year in their late 20-something lives. This diverse group of women defies stereotypes. There's reserved, conservative Rebecca, founder and editor of a magazine for Latina women, whose marriage to a preppy, Marxist theory-spouting academic is on the rocks; Sara, a full-time mom in Brookline, from a rich Cuban-Jewish family and married to an abusive husband; Usnavys, ambitious and entertainingly materialistic, who's an executive with United Way; Amber, a struggling singer and guitarist; Elizabeth, host of a Boston morning TV show and a born-again Christian; and Lauren, a feisty, hard-drinking newspaper columnist, half Cuban and "half white trash." The book addresses serious questions-prejudice, the difficulty of winning respect from Latino men-but balances them with enough budding (and dying) romances and descriptions of clothing and decor to satisfy any chick lit fan. The lively, humorous writing is peppered with Spanglish and attitude (watching Usnavys approach their meeting place, Lauren says, "Look at her. She just slid up to the curb out front in her silver BMW sedan.... She's on her cell phone. Wait, take two: She's on her itsy-bitsy cell phone. It gets smaller every time I see her. Or maybe she gets bigger, I can't tell. Girl loves her food.") This is a fun, irresistible debut.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Told from the alternating viewpoints of six Latinas who bonded while studying at Boston College, this engaging soap opera celebrates women's friendship while raising issues of prejudice, wife-battering, assimilation, cheating boyfriends, and lesbian identity. Having pursued different life paths--journalist, well-to-do wife, TV anchor, and struggling rock singer--each woman has reached a crisis. Hard truths must be faced, decisions made. The author reads well, but unevenly, not quite carrying off a distinctive voice for each of the women. Sex, romance, humor, a refreshing perspective, appealing characters, and a happy resolution add up to escapist entertainment with a Latina heart. E.S. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

In her first novel, Valdes-Rodriquez, a journalist for the Albuquerque Tribune, depicts the lives of six young, upwardly mobile Latinas, best friends since college, who meet twice a year to catch up with each other. They call themselves the sucias ("dirty girls"), as in "Buena Sucia Social Club." Lauren, a tough, outspoken, but painfully insecure newspaper columnist, opens the novel with fierce energy and irreverent humor, introducing readers to her friends: Usnavys, impeccably dressed and status-conscious; Rebecca, the hyper-driven founder of a thriving magazine for Latinas; Amber, a rock musician determined to bring her uniquely politicized music to the masses; Elizabeth, a news anchor who is hiding her lesbianism from the sucias and her colleagues; and Sara, a Sephardic Jewish mother of two whose marriage is not as perfect as it looks. Perhaps because it seems semiautobiographical, Lauren's voice is the most authentic, but Valdes-Rodriguez has given all six women complex, believably flawed personalities. Prepress buzz likening this novel to Terry McMillan's breakthrough Waiting to Exhale and rumors of a film by Jennifer Lopez's production company will generate demand, and justly so--this is a heartfelt, fast-moving, and often funny page-turner. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Dirty Girls Social Club, c'est une année de la vie mouvementée de six bad girls latinas, racontée successivement par chacune d'entre elles. Il y a Lauren, éditorialiste pour un grand quotidien régional ; Usnavys la battante, qui se refuse à admettre qu'elle aime Juan ; Sara, celle à qui tout réussit, riche, belle, avec un mari qui les fait toutes rêver ; Elizabeth, la jeune beauté qui présente les informations sur une chaîne nationale, pour qui les autres s'inquiètent de trouver un prince charmant (sans savoir qu'elle est lesbienne) ; Amber la rebelle, future rock star qui défend la dignité du peuple
mexicain ; et Rebecca, femme d'affaires déterminée, mariée à un riche philosophe peu attirant... Quand six Bridget Jones mâtinées de Jennifer Lopez se rencontrent, le mélange est drôle, tendre et épicé ! --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

"This lively debut novel...reads like the Hispanic version of Waiting to Exhale.." --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

"...the summer's must-have beach book." --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

"...a fresh spin on the best-of-friends novel that's funny, touching, and exhilaarating. A winner!" --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

"The Latina community has a rich new voice and Valdez-Rodriguez is it." --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

"...Valdes-Rodriguez has written an incredible first novel, told in six distinctt voices and points of view." --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

"...in the end, it's the complex, finely drawn characters who make the book workk." --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

"As a guilty pleasure I would say The Dirty Girls Social Club ranks somewhere between Valrhona Chocolate and Jimmy Choo shoes--I simply could not put it down." --Whitney Ottto, author of How to Make an American Quilt
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

As soon as it was written, The Dirty Girls Social Club began turning heads. The Chicago Tribune reported that the book 'set off a bidding frenzy' among publishers. The Associated Press reported that 'even people running the copy machines at major publishing houses just had to read The Dirty Girls Social Club.' It's no wonder the media is all in a whirl. In this heartfelt and absorbing novel, Valdes-Rodriguez opens up the lives of six upwardly mobile Latina friends in their late 20's. These women, who come from widely varied backgrounds, meet at Boston University and, after graduating, reunite every six months to share their stories. Facing the complications and pressures of everyday lives, the Social Club offers a chance to meet regularly, dish, dine, and help each other over the bumpy course of life and love. Filled with humor, drama, and the redemptive power of friendship, The Dirty Girls Social Club promises to be one of the most talked-about books of the year. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Bold, funny, moving and smart, The Dirty Girls Social Club is a life-affirming read with all the glamour, gusto, humour and candour you’d expect from your best girlfriends. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is a journalist and former staff writer for both the Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe. She is one of Latina magazine’s women of the year for 2002. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is her first novel.
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.