“Desahogar: to undrown, to cry until you don’t need to cry no more… When Ángela saw me cry, my sister said, You’re drowning in a glass of water”

How not to drown in a glass of water follows the story of Cara who lost her job in the Great Recession leading her to start counselling sessions as part of the Obama scheme. Over twelve sessions we learn about her life in the US as an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, a mother and a carer of her community as well as her struggles with loss, gentrification and the circumstances that lead her son to go non contact with her.

The first person narration draws you in straight away with brutal honesty and often humour. One thing that stuck with me the most was the portrayal of the challenges that mothers face. We see this topic on many levels in the book as we learn about Cara’s experience with her tough no love mother, her own experiences as a mother to her child as well as to her sister (‘the unnatural mother’), her sisters children and essentially the whole building she lives with. I found the weaving of these theme into the story so brilliantly done as well as the conclusion that: “To be a mother is to suffer”

I loved How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water. I found it surprising - formatted through these first person accounts while the main character navigates a government programme - and funny and heartbreaking. Angie Cruz makes all the characters vivid while showing them through the eyes of our messy protagonist. I thought the book tackled the challenges of migration, of "worthiness", of motherhood, of intergenerational trauma, and of love really well. The book does cover parental abuse and some may find parts of the book too sympathetic in these contexts. However, I don't think Cruz implies that any action by any character is "justified".

I will be using sections to teach on the musical In The Heights in my classes. So happy to have read it.

This is a very short novel about a very special woman. The saddest part is that she's not really all that special, because so many women are living her same reality, just doing their best to put one foot in front of the other every day without giving up. Trying not to drown.

Thank you SO MUCH for this arc :)

This book got me by the way it was written, such an interesting way of describing and discussing important social issues in a novel. Diffinitely recommend this book to everyone.

There is some affinity for me with the characters who have almost lost in life. Because almost all stories are hero's journey and at the end everyone stays happily ever after. And often that is very unrelatable to me because as a human with all flaws and foibles in my character, I am also someone who is trying to stay afloat. It is not easy.
Cara Romero has come very near to my heart.
Her story, her escapades, her secrets and her fight, she is a flawed human, a flawed woman who just tries her best, sometimes on the verge of giving up with one foot forward towards the destruction but then comes back and fights again.
This was one of the best reads I have read from Netgalley.
Thanks to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

After losing her job in the Great Recession 50-something Cara has to go back into the job market. Set up with a job counselor for 12 sessions, Cara delves into love affairs, debt, gentrification, and what drove her and her estranged son apart. Faced with secrets and darkness from her past, Cruz writes a woman who still has plenty of fight left in her.

“My name is Cara Romero, and I came to this country because my husband wanted to kill me. Don’t look so shocked. You’re the one who asked me to say something about myself.”

Immediately hooked by the opening lines, I was engrossed in this irresistible telling of the life of a vibrant, middle-aged Dominican woman. Rivetingly constructed by author Angie Cruz, we are introduced to Cara as she participates in job counselling sessions during the recession of 2009. “Listening in” on each of these interviews, we hear the mesmerizing, sometimes comical, stories Cara candidly shares about love affairs, loss and the complicated relationship she has with her son, Fernando. With the New York neighbourhood of Washington Heights as a backdrop, Cara recounts her secrets, regrets, challenges and triumphs with a sense of pride, and makes sharp observations about being an immigrant woman in America during this pivotal moment in history. The irony of these meetings acting as pseudo therapy sessions for Cara is not lost on us, even as she adamantly resists the notion of healing through the recognition of trauma.

Although we may grapple with some of Cara’s choices, Cruz’s writing compels us to root for this passionate, complex character. Cara is sure to resonate with anyone who appreciates the human spirit in us all.

An exploration of immigrant identity and the Dominican community in New York, told through a stream of consciousness narrator undergoing therapy. Interesting concept but the writing style really didn’t captivate me.

I really liked the format of this book it was unique and at first a bit hard to get a handle on but once I got used to it I started to love it. I loved that it was emotional but also funny - overall it was super engaging and enjoyable.

The idea for this story was brilliant and I absolutely love Cruz’s writing but I did really struggle with the very frequent use of Spanish with no explanation. I felt like I spent half the book trying to google translate words and some of them were slang so it wasn’t even that easy.

I also felt that Cara was quite an unlikeable character which did make it hard to warm to her and want to read on. For a short book this took me a long time to read as I just wasn’t invested in picking it up to know more. Great premise but missed it the mark for me.

Such a unique and memorable book. It may only be 200 pages but a lot has been packed in and by the end you will be gutted there isn't more !
Cara is 56, a Dominican immigrant now living in the US , it's 2008 , the US is in financial crisis and as a result Cara loses her job .During sessions with a job counsellor she shares her stories of her life, her childhood in the Dominican, an early marriage, escaping to the US and being a carer for her family . I loved the format of the book ( although i wasn't sure at first) and i loved the way odd bits of spanish / spanglish are thrown in . She is a person you will grow to love and i can see her on screen now , in fact i think this would work so well as an audio.

A great novella to get lost in over an afternoon

Cara Romero, an older Donimican woman goes to twelve sessions with an unemployment worker and tells us stories of her life, her community, her children, her friends. It felt like I was talking to my own family, an aunt an elder and I related a lot to the topics she covered. Beautifully written, it follows a story of a generation, the issues they held and continue to struggle with. Loved, loved, loved!

I have really enjoyed this one!

In this novel, we follow the story of Cara Romero, a Dominican immigrant residing in Washington Heights, who has worked at a lamp factory for several years. As the US goes through the financial crisis of 2008, Cara loses her job, and is forced to rely on short-term unemployment benefits and a program to help her find a permanent job. During sessions with a social worker at a job centre, Cara shares her life experiences and the stories of her relationships with her family and friends.

The format of the book - each session a pretext to explore one story in Cara's life - through an offer of a job as a security officer, or the prospect of opening her own nursey - which made the book feel dynamic and funny despite the traumatic stories retold by Cara. She is a very likeable character - funny, kind, direct - and the secondary characters were all interesting and well-written with just enough depth. It was original, and really enjoyable.

In 12 interviews with a job counsellor, Cara tells the story of her life; a childhood in the Dominican Republic, an early marriage, fleeing to America. She’s spent 20-something years living in Washington Heights, working in the factory of little lamps, and caring for her family and her community in a fierce and complicated way. This is such a rich and clever story which unfolds gradually before the reader. Cara is a great storyteller, absorbing and warm, and gradually you realise Cruz is doing something much subtler than it first appeared, playing with your expectations and subverting them. This becomes a story about generational trauma, gentrification, identity and community, told in the compelling voice of an extraordinary woman.

Write this down: Cara Romero is a fighter. A 56-year-old Dominican immigrant in New York who loses her factory job during the Great Recession, she has to meet with a counsellor in the city's Senior Workforce Programme to secure a job placement and continue receiving unemployment benefits in the meanwhile. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is the story of her indomitable spirit, told brilliantly through transcriptions from questionnaires, rent and medical invoices, and the 12 counselling sessions she undergoes.

The narrative structure of this novel is a brilliant device which exposes what bureaucratic procedures lack, made possible by the author’s deployment of an empathetic caseworker who frames the story of our most memorable protagonist: though the counsellor’s voice is absent in the book, her decision to present Cara’s case in her own words and idiosyncratic voice—a monologue complete with the tangents she goes off on; her lapses into gossip, judgement, and nostalgia about love affairs; and her requests for a glass of water in each session—rather than as straightforward, clinical notes typical of such programmes—allows us the context to narrativise and understand her experiences and to see her, not as a “welfare queen” or a statistic to be dealt with but as a real person worthy of our time, respect, and empathy.

Indeed, Cara here emerges as a woman who has crossed borders to escape abuse; sustained herself through poverty and exploitation; suffered pain, familial trauma, and estrangement from her son; touched and shaped the lives of the people around her; and navigated—is navigating—a sea of personal hardship and systemic injustice that can’t be lived through as much as survived. She is flawed as we all are, with her own share of things to rue and regret, and in these sessions she creates for herself a space to talk frankly about it all; to engage in a practice of desahogar—in Spanish, “to vent, to undrown, to release everything, to rise to the surface.” In doing so, she may appear frequently to digress from the concerns of the interviews, but in fact these digressions illustrate various aspects of her strong character and allow her to take control of the record that will determine her future. We see her asserting control more directly too: often, she uses her stories as examples for the counsellor, emphasising through them qualities that make her employable and commanding the latter to “write this down.” And yes, it is only because the counsellor writes it all down with sensitivity—going so far as refraining from reporting her client’s absence when she has to miss a session because of her friend’s passing—that Cara may be able to veer herself to a more secure future, and that her story reaches us in the first place.

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is about those aspects of the experiences of the poor and of immigrants that policy is designed to turn a blind eye to. Cara worked hard without any benefits for over 20 years in the lamp-making factory before it was moved away, raising an infant son and paying for the education of the younger sister who followed her to New York. Now, she has to attend the “la escuelata”—located at a considerable distance from her—just in order to be considered for another job placement. Though unemployed, she has to put a down payment for a necessary medical procedure that eats into the ever-increasing rent she owes. And yet, the agency may well mark her as “unwilling” to work when she turns down a poorly-paid job opportunity because it demands her to travel for two hours every day and disallows performing the essential carework—such as minding her sister’s children and a neighbour’s disabled daughter while the work to make ends meet, or caring for the elderly woman in her building who has no other family to depend on—that helps sustains the community around her in Washington Heights.

Low-income workers all around the world are often dependent on similar forms of community support to get by, and this novel encourages us to recognise the delicate manner in which their lives are held together. It also accommodates their unique struggles as individuals: the structure allows stories to nest within each other, and Cara’s descriptions of her own personal relationships and daily interactions often branch into miniature portraits of the people implicated in them, such as her sister Angela, her son Fernando, her friend and former co-worker Lulu, and her dear neighbour “La Vieja” Caridad. Each character provides insight into the manifold ways in which immigrants are marginalised in America: as first-generation immigrant mothers whose families outgrow them, as victims of intergenerational trauma, as those whose queerness may not be white or male enough to be seen as legitimate, as constant targets of racist personal and political attacks, and as people whose attainment of financial and social security always hangs by a thread—amongst many others.

Similarly, Cara’s neighbourhood of Washington Heights—“Little Dominican Republic”—serves as a microcosm that illustrates an America that is fast disappearing: a reality where neighbours are friends who do not shy from helping each other out, where local businesses and “everything stores” have not yet been replaced by overpriced “white people cafés,” and where long-term residents and members of the local community are not being forced out to make space for wealthier tenants. Set against the general environment of loss and decline of the 2008 recession—a product of rapid and careless free-market expansion—this picture of disturbed harmony appears all the more poignant, throwing the unfair and unhealthy nature of neoliberal ‘progress’ into relief.

Overall, this is a remarkably well-honed and observant novel, a compelling read that is as funny as it is profound. Having read this right after finishing James Hannaham’s Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta for the second time, I noted how well the two books—originally published in the US within one month of each other—read in relation to each other: both feature unforgettable protagonists with distinctive voices (Cara’s ‘Spanglish’ and Carlotta’s use of Black Urban English allow the readers to access their respective characters in a more intimate and endearing manner), explore the theme of gentrification’s effect on class and local communities in New York, and are just as brilliant in the audiobook format. Both books also focus on the way queerness and masculinity operate in face of oppression: Hannaham’s work deserves an essay of its own, but I also particularly warmed up to the subtlety with which Angie Cruz approaches the complex dynamics of immigration, masculinity, and queerness through the relationship between the protagonist and her son. Cara comes from an environment of toxic masculinity in her native Hato Mayor, and in New York her mission is to protect Fernando from the threat of being absorbed by hypermasculine, violent gangs. However, she also wants him to be able to protect himself from other boys who push him around on account of his vulnerability as an immigrant, failing to see how heckling him to “man up” adversely affects his self-concept as a queer child and ultimately estranges him from her.

In just under 200 pages of effortlessly-wrought prose, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water manages to entertain as well as enlighten. The only reason I welcomed the end of Cara’s story was because it was a happy one, and so I could dive in all over again. There is a lot more to say and feel about this novel than can be said in this review, so Write this down: Cara Romero can do wonders with just a glass of water, and it is a pleasure to witness her undrown.Write this down: Cara Romero is a fighter. A 56-year-old Dominican immigrant in New York who loses her factory job during the Great Recession, she has to meet with a counsellor in the city's Senior Workforce Programme to secure a job placement and continue receiving unemployment benefits in the meanwhile. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is the story of her indomitable spirit, told brilliantly through transcriptions from questionnaires, rent and medical invoices, and the 12 counselling sessions she undergoes.

The narrative structure of this novel is a brilliant device which exposes what bureaucratic procedures lack, made possible by the author’s deployment of an empathetic caseworker who frames the story of our most memorable protagonist: though the counsellor’s voice is absent in the book, her decision to present Cara’s case in her own words and idiosyncratic voice—a monologue complete with the tangents she goes off on; her lapses into gossip, judgement, and nostalgia about love affairs; and her requests for a glass of water in each session—rather than as straightforward, clinical notes typical of such programmes—allows us the context to narrativise and understand her experiences and to see her, not as a “welfare queen” or a statistic to be dealt with but as a real person worthy of our time, respect, and empathy.

Indeed, Cara here emerges as a woman who has crossed borders to escape abuse; sustained herself through poverty and exploitation; suffered pain, familial trauma, and estrangement from her son; touched and shaped the lives of the people around her; and navigated—is navigating—a sea of personal hardship and systemic injustice that can’t be lived through as much as survived. She is flawed as we all are, with her own share of things to rue and regret, and in these sessions she creates for herself a space to talk frankly about it all; to engage in a practice of desahogar—in Spanish, “to vent, to undrown, to release everything, to rise to the surface.” In doing so, she may appear frequently to digress from the concerns of the interviews, but in fact these digressions illustrate various aspects of her strong character and allow her to take control of the record that will determine her future. We see her asserting control more directly too: often, she uses her stories as examples for the counsellor, emphasising through them qualities that make her employable and commanding the latter to “write this down.” And yes, it is only because the counsellor writes it all down with sensitivity—going so far as refraining from reporting her client’s absence when she has to miss a session because of her friend’s passing—that Cara may be able to veer herself to a more secure future, and that her story reaches us in the first place.

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is about those aspects of the experiences of the poor and of immigrants that policy is designed to turn a blind eye to. Cara worked hard without any benefits for over 20 years in the lamp-making factory before it was moved away, raising an infant son and paying for the education of the younger sister who followed her to New York. Now, she has to attend the “la escuelata”—located at a considerable distance from her—just in order to be considered for another job placement. Though unemployed, she has to put a down payment for a necessary medical procedure that eats into the ever-increasing rent she owes. And yet, the agency may well mark her as “unwilling” to work when she turns down a poorly-paid job opportunity because it demands her to travel for two hours every day and disallows performing the essential carework—such as minding her sister’s children and a neighbour’s disabled daughter while the work to make ends meet, or caring for the elderly woman in her building who has no other family to depend on—that helps sustains the community around her in Washington Heights.

Low-income workers all around the world are often dependent on similar forms of community support to get by, and this novel encourages us to recognise the delicate manner in which their lives are held together. It also accommodates their unique struggles as individuals: the structure allows stories to nest within each other, and Cara’s descriptions of her own personal relationships and daily interactions often branch into miniature portraits of the people implicated in them, such as her sister Angela, her son Fernando, her friend and former co-worker Lulu, and her dear neighbour “La Vieja” Caridad. Each character provides insight into the manifold ways in which immigrants are marginalised in America: as first-generation immigrant mothers whose families outgrow them, as victims of intergenerational trauma, as those whose queerness may not be white or male enough to be seen as legitimate, as constant targets of racist personal and political attacks, and as people whose attainment of financial and social security always hangs by a thread—amongst many others.

Similarly, Cara’s neighbourhood of Washington Heights—“Little Dominican Republic”—serves as a microcosm that illustrates an America that is fast disappearing: a reality where neighbours are friends who do not shy from helping each other out, where local businesses and “everything stores” have not yet been replaced by overpriced “white people cafés,” and where long-term residents and members of the local community are not being forced out to make space for wealthier tenants. Set against the general environment of loss and decline of the 2008 recession—a product of rapid and careless free-market expansion—this picture of disturbed harmony appears all the more poignant, throwing the unfair and unhealthy nature of neoliberal ‘progress’ into relief.

Overall, this is a remarkably well-honed and observant novel, a compelling read that is as funny as it is profound. Having read this right after finishing James Hannaham’s Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta for the second time, I noted how well the two books—originally published in the US within one month of each other—read in relation to each other: both feature unforgettable protagonists with distinctive voices (Cara’s ‘Spanglish’ and Carlotta’s use of Black Urban English allow the readers to access their respective characters in a more intimate and endearing manner), explore the theme of gentrification’s effect on class and local communities in New York, and are just as brilliant in the audiobook format. Both books also focus on the way queerness and masculinity operate in face of oppression: Hannaham’s work deserves an essay of its own, but I also particularly warmed up to the subtlety with which Angie Cruz approaches the complex dynamics of immigration, masculinity, and queerness through the relationship between the protagonist and her son. Cara comes from an environment of toxic masculinity in her native Hato Mayor, and in New York her mission is to protect Fernando from the threat of being absorbed by hypermasculine, violent gangs. However, she also wants him to be able to protect himself from other boys who push him around on account of his vulnerability as an immigrant, failing to see how heckling him to “man up” adversely affects his self-concept as a queer child and ultimately estranges him from her.

In just under 200 pages of effortlessly-wrought prose, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water manages to entertain as well as enlighten. The only reason I welcomed the end of Cara’s story was because it was a happy one, and so I could dive in all over again. There is a lot more to say and feel about this novel than can be said in this review, so Write this down: Cara Romero can do wonders with just a glass of water, and it is a pleasure to witness her undrown.

This is a powerful story of resilience and hope. Cara, the main character, attends 12 meetings with a social worker as a part of the senior workforce program after being jobless going on two years. We hear her recount her challenges throughout the years as well as her current struggles, with her strength and tough love shining through every story she tells. You get a sense of the importance of community for her and those around her, connected by their immigrant and working-class status in their now-turning-gentrified neighbourhood. I thoroughly enjoyed the first-person form this narrative assumes, which makes it possible for you to really get the sense of Cara as a strong and resilient personality. Her character is unique whilst also possessing an 'everywoman' quality, and I feel like she is the author's homage to all the strong dominicanas in New York, forming the backbone of the community.

It’s 2009, and while “El Obama” works to piece together a shattered US economy, Cara Romero, at age 56, must find a job of her own or face her benefits ceased.

She’s been unemployed for two years since the factory where she worked most of her life moved its operations abroad.

Cars attends ‘La Escuelita’ as part of a Senior Workforce Program in New York, where she sits down with a city employee, a younger Dominican American woman, for 12 sessions, during which they will work together to find Cara a job that matches her skills and interests.

Throughout the sessions, with wit and warmth, Cara recounts her upbringing in the Dominican Republic, her journey to the United States, estrangement from her only child, relationships with her sister and extended family, and commitment to her largely disadvantaged immigrant Washington Heights community.

The potency of Cara’s first-person voice as she speaks to the job counsellor is stunning, including some delectable multilingual turns of phrase that only heighten Cara’s authenticity. Cruz intersperses the 12 sessions with documents like rent notices and job application materials she must complete, including a “Career Skills Matcher,” all of which work together to demonstrate both the power of bureaucracy to complicate a person’s life and the ability of paperwork to tell one version of a person’s story while often hiding their reality and what makes life truly rich.

Despite all the hardships that Cara faces, the book also resounds with the sense that Cara loves and believes in herself. She is one strong lady, but behind the facade, she battles plenty of inner turmoil.

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is beautiful, a thoroughly engaging read that I devoured in one sitting.

Sure, haven't we all felt the need at one time or another to ‘desahogar’? A Spanish phrase, which translated, literally means “to un-drown.” To pour one’s heart out and cry until there is no need to cry anymore. 5⭐

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this e-ARC in return for an honest review.

How Not To Drown In a Glass of Water is a stunning, short read that will warm your heart and leave you wanting more. Cara Romeo is left struggling to find a job by the great recession. In her mid-fifties, she is meeting with a job counsellor telling the story of her life; tempestuous tale of romance, hardship, and true friends. She talks of her estranged son, but takes time to open up about the true reasons behind his refusal to see her. She also talks about her neighbour Lulu and the elderly lady that she helps care for, bringing to life their incredible personalities to almost make you feel like you know them.

Interspersed with snippets of CVs, questionnaires, job interview transcripts , this book forces the reader to see the struggle and the humiliation of being in Sara's situation. Falling further and further behind on rent, things become increasingly desperate. Her character and emotions at this time are written so wonderfully that I couldn't help loving her and truly wanting a positive outcome for her.

I wholly recommend this book and cannot wait to read more by Angie Cruz!

How Not To Drown In A Glass Of Water by Angie Cruz is the second I’ve read of Cruz’s novels, and I adored them both.

Having read HNTDIAGOW, it is clear to me that Cruz is a truly brilliant storyteller.

This novel is told from the perspective of Cara Romero, a woman in her 50s who moved from Dominican Republic to New York as a young single mother. She is in conversation with government employee during a series of interviews on an unemployment benefits programme during the late 00s (not that the interviewer can get a word in with Cara!!)

Cara is such a charismatic, funny, flawed and complicated character. I loved being in her head for 200 pages and seeing the character develop.

What I think Cruz does exceptionally well is take tough, sad situations and shows it from a different perspective, in a way you might not have considered. She compels her reader to see the good in flawed people, their good intentions, and in their full context. I loved that HNTDIAGOW found a little bit of good in the world. Lovely stuff.

Pick up this book up if: you want a novel that is funny but not fluffy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Having read and enjoyed Angie Cruz’s Dominicana, a fast-paced, warm-hearted, coming of age drama about a young Dominicana in New York, I looked forward to picking up her new novel, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, which will be published this month.

Cara Romero, our protagonist, is a Dominicana who has lived in the US for decades, working at a lamp factory and living in Washington Heights.

It’s 2008 and with the US in the grip of a financial crisis, Cara finds herself out of work, in receipt of short term unemployment benefits and enrolled in a program to help her find long term employment.

In conversations with a government employee, Cara opens up and in an unforgettable manner, allows us into her life as an immigrant, a mother, a sister, a lover, a carer and a friend.

This is a book that crept up on me slowly - I wasn’t sure about the format initially - but then had me utterly rapt.

Cruz is so skilled at building a character with a rich and complex history and personality. Cara comes alive on the page.- she is so funny and good-hearted, but so deeply traumatised by her own past and incapable of seeing it, focusing instead on her resilience, and unconsciously passing on the trauma to her son.

It’s impossible not to root for Cara. I could see my own mother and grandmother in many of her ways. Write this down (as Cara herself would say): Cara Romero will be one of my favourite characters this year. 4-4.5/5⭐️

I imagine that this is a book that will work incredibly well on audio. Reserve it on @Borrowbox as soon as it is available.

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water will be published on 16 February 2023 by John Murray Press but is available now on Kindle. As always, this is an honest review.*

Big thank you to John Murray Press for this copy of How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, the latest novel by Angie Cruz. Although I hadn't read her previous works, I've seen nothing but praise for them so was delighted to receive this digital copy.

This is a very charming and humbling novel. We go with Cara Romero on a journey through her past as she meets with a job counsellor over the course of twelve sessions. We learn about her family, her friends and her life, the losses and the wins, the bad and the good. This is primarily a character-driven book! We get to see all of Cara's attributes throughout these interviews and I really loved her by the end. She hasn't had an easy life but she still sees the good and positive in things. The writing enabled me to envision Cara sitting there through these sessions, at times I felt like a fly on the wall. The main character and her story were fleshed out perfectly which is why it all felt so real.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book and am excited to read more of Cruz's work!

* Please research any trigger warnings before reading *