Dirty Girls on Top

Dirty Girls on Top
by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

Dirty Girls on Top
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Book Summary Information

Author: Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-07-08
ISBN: 031234967X
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Book Reviews of Dirty Girls on Top

Book Review: Dirty Girls in Top Form
Summary: 5 Stars

The sucias are back and that's a good thing even though their lives are even more complicated and dramatic from when we last saw them five years ago.
But that's why these Latina professionals have each other. They can handle anything that comes their way, even a homicidal ex-husband, which adds to the fun literary ride that Valdes-Rodriguez takes the reader on.

As in their tradition, Valdes-Rodriguez opens the book as the women embark on meeting up at a resort in New Mexico for the annual sucias gathering. Here they catch up on and dish about what has been going in their lives. Well, almost. Some of the sucias don't immediately reveal their secrets.

Usnavys: She's still hoochie but that is what endeared her to her readers. She's strong, real, and tells it like it is. She's still a leader in the Boston community working with the United Way and she likes to show off the goods that God, Puerto Rico and her credit line have given her. This Latina bombshell even has a blog about being sexy. But underneath her thick tough exterior is una mujer who wants to feel like a doted and desired woman with her husband Juan, who has opted to stay at home to raise their daughter while Usnavys works. UsNavys yearns for the excitement of being in love and feeling like a wanted woman - by her husband. An affair with a hunky golf instructor may ruin all that.

Lauren: She's still a newspaper columnist in Boston and enjoys her relationship with her thuggish Dominican boyfriend who seems to be getting one too many text messages on his phone. Lauren struggles with seeing the truth about her guy and herself. Confused, she decides to experiment sexually with one of the sucias. (Spoiler alert:) And when no one is around, she privately abuses alcohol and herself with trips to the bathroom. All combine to send her over the edge with the sucias to the rescue.

Elizabeth: Her Boston TV anchoring days behind her, this Colombian with the heart of a poet is enjoying being a new mother to a baby she and her partner adopted. Elizabeth loves motherhood but her partner doesn't feel the same way That conflict pulls them apart and forces Elizabeth to realize that she may be a single gay mother after all in Brookline. Complicating matters, Elizabeth is secretly in love with one of the sucias.

Rebecca: Her Latina magazine is booming and so is her marriage. All she wants is a baby and health issues and work stress only complicate that.

Sara: She's the Cuban-American Martha Stewart with a popular show that Elizabeth produces in Boston. She seems to have it all. She's moved on from her abusive ex-husband who has fled the country and hasn't been seen locally but she still aches for him, physically and emotionally. Through Sara, the reader sees the difficulty of letting go of an abusive relationship and the pull that one person can have on another when one lets someone else rent space in their head and heart.

Amber: Her music career is on a high note and she enjoys the freedom it brings - until she tries to ventures too experimental in her music and her sales and concerts dip. Her older manager, who acts a surrogate father and lover in one, may help her find her way, musically and emotionally.

Valdes-Rodriguez recaptures the charm and spirit of the first book. Both are fun and fast reads, as each chapter alternates through one of the narrators. But this is not just a book for the beach. Valdes-Rodriguez deftly conveys the complicated range of emotions of the women through crisp writing that offers deep introspection, almost a mirror for the characters to reflect on. These women feel real, people you would know in your family, circle of friends or at work. The fact that they are all Latinas is almost an afterthought.

The characters that resonated the most were Usnavys and Lauren. Their voices are the strongest and most developed. The reader sees their gradual metamorphosis, as Usnavys surrenders herself to being a wife and a mother while Lauren discovers the person she was meant to be through all her episodes with her health and her man. By the end of the book, Lauren is a more centered person spiritually and emotionally. She's more at peace with her job, her looks and her insecurities. She shines the most in this novel and there are touching moments when she bonds with her editor and decides to mentor younger writers. Usnavys comes to terms with realizing that the world doesn't revolve around her needs and doesn't cater to her every whim. She learns that she has to check herself because her daughter and husband need her the most and that is what really matters.

Ironically, each of the sucias want what the other has. Rebecca has the marriage and career but not the family she desperately craves for while Elizabeth has the baby but not the ideal partner to share him with. Confident Usnavys has an earnest husband who does everything that is expected of him, which is what insecure Lauren wants in a man, someone to love and appreciate her and make her feel whole. The same goes for Amber. Sara has it all, two sons, a blooming career, but no man to share it with besides her homicidal ex-husband until a new love beckons.

My only critique of the book is this: some of the chicas don't seem as close as they were in the first book. UsNavys and Lauren are the closest pair of the bunch while Elizabeth and Sara have their own tight friendship because of their business arrangement. I didn't get the sense that these women (specifically, Rebecca and Amber) were very close to each other or to the others. It's as if they the sucias have sub-cliques within their own clique.

But Hispanic or not, male or female, readers will find something to relate to by hanging out with the sucias all over again.

Summary of Dirty Girls on Top

The Dirty Girls are back, saucier and sexier than ever?.but would it be wrong to ask them to be a little smarter, too?? Especially when it comes to men. And sex.

Lauren Fernandez is at the top of her game as the cleverest columnist the Boston Gazette has on board?but she can't quite figure out how to pick a guy or how to eat (and not drink) like a healthy person.  Usnavys is still sashaying all over town, 260 pounds of her dolled up in designer duds and ready for action?from anyone except her husband Juan, that is.  He?s become just a bit boring staying home scrubbing the tub and cooking up chicken fingers for pre-schooler Carolina while somebody else brings home the bacon.

Maybe the other Dirty Girls could help Lauren and ?navy out, but they've got their own messes to deal with: Rebecca Baca hasn't gained a pound since college (well, who would, if they had an ounce of self-control?) but suspects her picture-perfect marriage may not yield the baby she longs for; Sara may be the star of her own decorating show on cable television, but her dangerous pull toward her ex-husband Roberto isn't so pretty;  Amber keeps renaming herself and doesn't want to hear that her soulfulness and reinvention aren't enough to make fans actually buy her music; and Elizabeth is discovering that a relationship with another woman takes more than bravery and a nesting instinct.

Dirty Girls on Top is about trying to figure it all out without quite as much time left as there was five years ago.  And it?s about sex and love?getting it, not getting it, yearning for it, having it with the wrong person, fighting it from the right person, trying it a new way, giving up on it. And, in the end, if your fingers are crossed and the planets are in alignment, having it come out just the way it should.

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