Guide Mentor

Character Role Analysis

The sisters… sometimes.

This is another category that's as tricksy as a hobbit. The García sisters are a pretty independent bunch, and while they receive advice and help from many people throughout the course of the novel, there's no one who really earns the title of "Mentor."

Even the characters that teach Yoyo and her sisters something about life can't escape their criticism. That's because many of the lessons they provide aren't intentional. The García girls learn more from these characters about how not to act than anything else. For example: Rudy Elmenhurst gives Yoyo a good idea of how she doesn't want to have sex. The "hair-and-nails" cousins on the Island show the sisters how not to be feminists. Papi shows them how not to parent four daughters on the brink of adulthood.

Sometimes the sisters serve as guides for one another, but not always. When Island-dwelling Fifi starts to lose her feminist edge in "A Regular Revolution," her three older sisters band together to bring Fifi back to the U.S. and remind her of her ideals. But later it is Fifi who seems the happiest and most secure in her identity. Unlike her anxious older sisters, she's comfortable with her sexuality; this gives "solace to the third daughter, who was always so tentative and had such troubles with men" (1.2.15).

Other than that, you're on your own, girls. This life, halfway between the Dominican Republic and the United States, is uncharted territory.