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There are currently 27 member reviews
for Make Your Home Among Strangers
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Carolyn C. (Las Vegas, NV)
Make Your Home Among Strangers
In Capó Crucet's second major work anchored in Floridian working class Cuban culture, gutsy Lizet escapes unprepared from her shattered family to a top tier college. Her choice to leave entrenched cultural structures breaks essential bonds of family and identity. The text erupts with emotional behaviors and fierce language blamed on this "betrayal," but allowing the main characters space to become strangers to each other while acting out individual needs.
The author chooses an intensive focus on scenes, resulting in detailed characterization but a slow narrative pace. Each scene is lit by contrast of personalities, providing highly pleasing realism, wackiness, chaos, humor, sympathy and warmth. Use of an outer frame structure by which an older Lizet updates and occasionally intrudes into the main text raises the literary value, as do the symbolic Florida culverts and laboratory notebooks that permit discarding errors and moving forward, plus juxtaposition of the family's crisis with the historic but camouflaged 1999 Elián González custody battle. The novel is recommended for reading groups who can tolerate fuming language and underage sex, senior high and freshman college classes – with guidance, Chick Lit fans, and anyone curious how a current presidential candidate so easily bisects older and younger Cuban voters.
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Carol R. (Foster City, CA)
Navigating two very different worlds
Is leaving your home and culture to explore another world "selling out?" Is it possible to live in two different worlds, one the culture of birth and upbringing and the second the culture and rarefied air of an elite US college? These are two of the themes that "Making Your Home Among Strangers" explores. The book is raw and uncomfortable at times, especially in Lizet's Miami world. The story is interesting and the author does a good job at describing the two different cultures. The book is also an interesting read. However, the author's style of refusing to use quotations when her characters speak significantly detracts from the reader's enjoyment. I'm not sure of the purpose, other than to perhaps make Lizet's world seem grittier and uneducated. Hugely eye-opening book as more and more first generation college students attend our elite colleges and universities.
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Carole R. (Burlington, WI)
Leaving Home
This novel by Jeannine Capo Crucet rang true with me on several levels. It took me back to the excitement of leaving home and going away to school while my friends stayed home. The excitement of first snow from dorm mates, the tiptoeing around room mates, the lack of money, the trauma of making grownup decisions and of course, the drama of dealing with the opposite sex. The fact that it is told from a Cuban-American point of view didn't detract from my memories of that first year of college. Crucet weaves Cuban history into this tale and the Cuban family dynamic. The strong female characters and their interaction with each other provides a glimpse into a culture that I think will intrigue new readers of Crucet. I would definitely recommend this book for my book club and hope that Crucet brings more outlooks into Cuban-American culture.
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Mary Lou F. (Naples, FL)
Culture Shock
A Cuban girl is a minority attendee at an elitist school with no idea of the differences in culture. Her family doesn't help as they don't encourage education and she is torn between her family and wanting something better for herself. Makes one think about backgrounds, familial ties and the chance to go beyond what you have always known.
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Sharalynne P. (Valparaiso, IN)
Thanks for the opportunity to read this book!
I liked the book but didn't love it. However, I am glad I was given the opportunity to read it. I haven't read anything about the Cuban-American experience and this did bring back memories of the little boy Elian from many years ago. It was interesting to get a detailed perspective on how many of the Cuban people probably felt at the time, and some of the humor in the book had me chuckling out loud. Lizet reached out for a better life but didn't abandon her old life either.
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Wendy F. (Kalamazoo, MI)
Interesting read
A couple of things made Make Your Home Among Strangers an interesting read. First, it hearkens back to the time of Elian Gonzalez and all the drama that unfolded during that incident in our history. But also with the new relationship between the United States and Cuba, it is good to see how lives of Cuban immigrants are different and see how they are similar. The book was a little slow for me but it may have been due to a busy schedule. I'm glad that I read it as it gave me insight into a culture I know little about.
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Vy A. (Phoenix, AZ)
Make Your Home Among Strangers
The author has done an excellent job of depicting the struggle and frustration of a young Cuban lady who, against her families' wishes, displays ambition and strives for a better life through education. The contrast between her Cuban community in Miami and the privileged student society of an Eastern college where she managed to get a scholarship is striking. At times the main character, Lizet, exhibited what seemed to be unjustified erratic behavior, but perhaps that strengthened the theme of the story—how difficult it is to make a change in one's life when there is not only a lack of family support but criticism as well. Excellent descriptive writing and dialogue but it took me some time to get used to the lack of quotation marks. I often had to re-read a section to see who was speaking
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