Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- How would the novel be different if it were told forwards instead of backwards? Can you try to reconstruct the story chronologically?
- Why is the novel divided into three sections? What's different about each section?
- Who do you think is the predominant "voice" in the novel? If the novel were a radio program on NPR, which character would get the most air-time?
- Many critics have said that Yolanda is an autobiographical character for Julia Alvarez. What do you think about that argument? Can you spot any clues that suggest that Yolanda is a projection of the author?
- Dominican-American author Junot Díaz is a pretty good writer (he won a little award called the Pulitzer Prize), but he says that writing female characters is super hard: "The one thing about being a dude and writing from a female perspective is that the baseline is, you suck." What do you think? Could How the García Girls Lost Their Accents have been written by a guy?
- If you were going to cast the movie version of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, which celebs would you pick to play the members of the García family? What about Rudy Elmenhurst? Manuel Gustavo? Victor Hubbard? The Fannings?
- Is the story of the García family's assimilation to American culture particularly Dominican? Or can we say that their experiences somehow reflect on a universal immigrant experience? How would the story be different if it were about a family from another country, like Iran, China or Mexico? (Those are just examples—pick any country you like.) What would stay the same?
- Okay, now that you've got your mind wrapped around that idea, here's another twist on the same concept: could this novel have been written about a U.S. family settling in another country?
- Some critics have said that How The García Girls Lost Their Accents is a novel with two endings. Are they on to something?
- Can you think of a good theme song for this novel? Would you choose a touching and emotional anthem? A rockin' power ballad? Something entirely off-the-wall?
- Julia Alvarez's mother was famously upset at the publication of this novel, and so were some of her other family members. Why do you think she was so mad? What parts of the novel do you think upset her? Could you ever write this kind of novel about your own family?