I very much enjoyed this novel set in the 1960s about 15 year old Dominican girl Ana, who is pretty much forced into a marriage with 32 year old Juan, and they promptly move to New York. Beautifully written and a real page turner, it's an incredibly sad story in many ways that is hard to read at times. Very moving and thought provoking.

This is such a captivating read.
The plot and characters are very good. The writing style doesn’t work 100% but I’ did enjoy the story

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I can see why this was in contention for a literary prize . The writing is sublime and heartfelt story of life and personal growth. Throughly enjoyed this.

What a wonderful book. Warm, heartfelt, honest and beautifully written, I just loved Ana and so wanted her to be happy. I felt all her frustrations, her dashed hopes, her spirit, and felt so invested in her story.

A girl with dreams, hopes, aspirations, Ana hopes she will have a better life as a married woman in the US, even if she feels nothing for husband Juan, a man twice her age. Only fifteen, she has to grow up far too quickly and do her best to make a life for herself. She has so much to contend with, so much responsibility, and so much pressure from her mother, still in the Dominican Republic, always demanding that she send home money.

It’s difficult to imagine what it must be like to have to make a new life in a country where you don’t know anyone, where you don’t speak the language, where you have no money, no job, no friends. The resilience and courage Ana shows is a testament to all of those who have been forced to build a life in a strange, often hostile land.

Her story is told beautifully; the author is incredibly talented.

Highly recommended.

This book is a beautiful portrayal of personal growth through hardship. I found myself engrossed in Ana's development and through the incidents that occur. The writing is beautiful although this is also quite a dark book which I wasn't massively expecting from the blurb.

I really enjoyed this coming of age novel, with our narrator, 15-year-old Ana, being married to an older man in order that she can move New York. I felt that we got to know Ana really well over the course of the novel, as her character changed and developed.

I did think that more could have been made of the setting of New York in the 60s (it never felt like the 60s to me!) and I HATED the lack of quotation marks, but other than these issues I thought this was a really good read.

This book hit me REAL good. I was a complete mess when I read the last sentence, and I knew then that this was my favourite novel from the @womensprize this year. Dominicana tells the story of fifteen year-old Ana from the Dominican Republic, who is forced to marry a much older man and begin a new life with him in 60s’ New York City. A new city, culture, and a big journey of her own self-discovery. Shy, homesick, and desperate to escape this change, it’s her brother-in-law César who changes Ana’s mind and encourages her to find her voice and place in society.
By the end I was so proud of Ana and all her accomplishments. This book screams female empowerment and I LOVE IT!

Thank you to NetGalley and John Murray Press for kindly providing me with a digital copy of this book for review.
I’m sure many people have seen this book doing the rounds and making the awards lists all over the place. So is all this hype and praise justified in my humble opinion? Well, yes and no! Let me explain.
The themes that are tackled here such as immigration, forced underage marriage, family trust, fidelity, and civil unrest, all hold a certain amount of gravitas. And with those themes in mind, I found myself comparing it to Brick Lane by Monica Ali,
When I was reading this book , I was there in New York with our protagonist Anna, trying to make sense of this big and sprawling foreign city. I was invested and smelling the food she cooked, and hearing the beat of the music she listened to. My problem was that when I put the book down, I didn’t feel the compulsion to pick it back up again as soon as possible to find out what happened next. I’m not sure if that’s because I already knew in my head what happened next, as the author states herself, this is a simple story inspired by her mother’s own life story. I could see where it was going and where it was going to end, and there wasn’t many surprises along the way. So while I was engaged whilst reading the story, I wasn’t as connected to it and it didn’t live with me enough while I was not reading it.
I do definitely think it’s worthy of much of the praise given, and fully recommend people to pick it up. It’s certainly very informative and I’ve learnt a lot about the immigration from Dominican Republic to America-obviously I am aware of the cultural and racial diversity in New York but I hadn’t fully appreciated just how large the Dominican Republic expat community in New York was.
So it’s a bit of a hard one for me to rate but I think it’s somewhere between a 3.5- 4 stars.

Inspired by her mother’s experience, Angie Cruz presents the story of Ana who leaves Dominica to marry an older man and live in New York at age 15. This novel brings to life the impact of poverty on life choices and explores themes of trust, responsibility, family and friendship. An illuminating read of immigrant experience, I would recommend reading Dominicana.

After reading mixed reviews I was unsure about what I would think but for me it was a winner .
It’s not only a story about immigration but it’s also a sort of coming of age novel . The writing style is basic but the characters are so well developed and thought out . I loved the historical backdrop of events and it gave me a good insight to the struggles of immigrants during this time .
If you liked Americanah then this would be something you will also like .

Absolutely adored this contender for the 2020 Women's Prize. A beautiful story of an immigrant woman who learns how to grow and be independent away from her native country.

This book opened my eyes so much about the difficulties that immigrants have, the reason they need to move and the problems they encounter.
I really felt for Ana finding her life so strange and hard moving to New York with her new older husband. The characters were so well written.
An eye opening book.
Thank you netgalley

Opinions on this book have not been favourable and I have put off reading it..
I found that the writing did not work for me. It seemed quite dry and unemotional despite the heavy topics the book deals with. Somehow the writing makes the reader feel disconnected from the story and the characters.
I don’t feel that the novel shows a new perspective on the American immigrant experience, and actually found it quite stereotypical.

This was a book that I desperately wanted to love, one that had been given so much praise (and continues to be given more) and that I just knew I needed to pick up. So I picked it up and, honestly, I was disappointed. There are absolutely things I loved about this book, but I don't think the things I loved outweighed the things that left me feeling severely underwhelmed.

We'll start with the things I enjoyed. I really liked the way Ana was written. Angie Cruz has this magnificent ability to show, not tell. We really see Ana's youth and naivety through Cruz's writing, through Ana's thought processes and her actions rather than her direct speech. I also really liked the way Cruz sprinkles in handfuls of Dominican history, events that occurred surrounding the war and how they affected families. It was really useful in terms of setting the scene and continuously emphasising the historical time period.

However, that's where the good elements ended for me. For a 323-page book, Dominicana felt overwhelmingly long. It was a story where so much seemed to take place, yet nothing at all happened. I suppose that means it's a rather slow book which didn't seem to have a fully developed story, so elements felt dragged out to compensate. While Cruz certainly had exceptional prosaic moments, it did feel at times that she wasn't sure what kind of story she was writing: historical fiction; lyrical prose; magical realism. It was a little all over the place syntactically, which ultimately meant the writing was jarring.

I didn't particularly feel as though any of the characters held much depth aside from perhaps Marisela. Juan takes on the role of the stereotypical abusive Black illegal immigrant. César is the stereotypical third corner in a sibling love triangle. Ana is the stereotypical underage girl forced to marry an older man and move abroad so her family can have better prospects. It's a little concerning when a secondary character has more depth than the main trio.

I wish I loved this more, but it sadly just didn't work for me.

Trigger warnings: underage marriage, colourism, animal slaughter, domestic abuse, adultery, child abuse.

Thank you to Netgalley, Angie Cruz and John Murray Press for providing me with an e-copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Dominicana is the story of 15 year old Ana. Her parents forcibly (well, they don’t give her the option NOT to) marry her off to a much older man, Juan, and they move to New York where she knows no-one else and doesn’t speak any English. I can’t imagine how isolated this child must feel. Ana grows up during this coming of age story. She must learn how to ‘manage’ her husband, who hits her on more than one occasion. She is completely at his mercy, living in a run down flat, told not to let anyone in unless they have an appointment to buy knock-off suits (I tried to think of a better phrase for these suits, but this is all I’ve got!), not to go anywhere except the supermarket by herself, and she’s given no opportunity to learn English - isolating her further.

Probably the best thing that happens to her is when Juan returns to the Dominican Republic to see his brother and sort out family money and properties. Juan’s younger brother, Cesar, stays to look after her and encourages her independence. I wish this part could have been longer. She starts to learn English, makes her own money, and probably unwisely forms an attachment to Cesar. She finds out she’s pregnant just before Juan goes to the Dominican Republic, and seems reluctant to tell him. And I can’t blame her. He really has no place marrying a 15 year old child, least of all making her pregnant.

I liked the way that this story was set against real historical events: Malcolm Xs assassination, the US troops going into Vietnam, the immigration bill where Hispanic people began to migrate to the US in greater numbers, and even more pop-culture events like The Beatles playing for the first time in New York and Dominican players in baseball. These events really helped to paint a fuller picture of Ana’s life. It’s easy for me to sit at home reading a book in 2020, saying that a 14/15 year old should never be able to marry a man much older than she is and be taken to a foreign country, but this book is set in 1965-66. It was a different world then (although I should say that this does still happen in some countries). This is what makes Dominicana such an enthralling read.

Many thanks to the publisher, Flatiron Books, and NetGalley for my copy of this book.

My thanks to John Murray Press for a digital copy via NetGalley of ‘Dominicana’ by Angie Cruz. It recently has been shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction. My apologies for the late feedback.

This drama is set in 1965 and focuses on the life of fifteen-year-old Ana Canción. She has grown up in the Dominican countryside; though unlike many of her friends she has never dreamt of moving to America. Then Juan Ruiz, who is twice her age, proposes and promises to take her to New York City. For her family’s sake she must say yes as their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate.

She leaves her old life behind and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana dreams of escaping. When the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family's assets, leaving his younger brother César to take care of Ana. This gives her the opportunity to tentatively spread her wings. Throughout this novel Ana has to choose between her needs and dreams and her duty to her family.

This was written in a traditional narrative style, that I welcomed as it allowed Ana’s voice to be heard.

I found it an interesting and at times heartbreaking account of the trials faced by illegal immigrants to the States during the 1960s. It certainly contrasted with my own experience of immigration there at the same age and time period and brought home the struggle still going on for so many.

In her acknowledgements Cruz writes that it was her mother’s experiences that inspired the novel along with the many Dominicanas that shared their memories and answered her questions.

While it may not be as relevant to readers in the U.K. given the setting and subject matter, it is still a powerful coming-of-age story that highlights a number of important social issues.

A captivating story about a year in the life of Ana, a young girl in the D.R. Who marries Juan to better her family.s prospects. Juan is twice her age and trying to make his fortune in NYC. This is a unique vision for me as someone living in Ireland who would have little representation of Dominican people. Ultimately I found this a fascinating read and just what I needed in this moment. The writing appeared to be YA but given it was from the point of view of a 15 year old it is beautifully done. I would give this a very easily earned 5 stars.

Set in the 1950s, the author's acknowledgements credit the inspiration of her mother's experience of migrating to the US. From Ana's POV we see her happiness in the Dominican Republic, despite grinding poverty and her mother's extreme corporal punishment when her children disobey her. Set up by her mother, Ana is married at 15 to one of 4 ambitious brothers with business plans for her father's land. She travels to the US on a tourist visa and her overprotective husband turns out to have secrets and a terrible temper. Ana's account of her experiences is limited by her language skills and her husband's desire that she stay home: only when he returns to work in Santo Domingo that she can explore New York, taking an English class and making some money of her own. i loved Ana's bravery and the sense in the book that much was possible, even if not for her own generation.

"We marvel at the humongous dinosaur robot and the Ferris wheel.
Do you think one day we will all be able to fly, I say, and see each other when we make a phone call?
We'll even be able to take a vacation on the moon, Ana Mañana. Imagine us walking on the moon.
Not if we are wearing these clothes, I say."

Thank you to Netgalley, John Murray Press and Angie Cruz for this e-copy in return for my honest review. Moving, well written novel. Characters that I felt invested in and cared for. Would definitely recommend.