Cristina Henríquez completely blew me away with her novel, The Book of Unknown Americans. It has been thus far my favorite novel that we have read in YAL.  Although I have caught myself saying this about a few other books, the raw/real emotion that Henríquez displays through the different characters moved me to tears on more than one occasion.  Being able to see the different perspectives from each of the characters was one of the things that interested me the most.

Before I started reading the novel, I flipped through the pages, skimming them to get a feel for it (which is something I usually do before reading a book) and immediately I felt wary because it changed perspectives so much, and I normally do not enjoy that.  But, just a few chapters in and I knew that would not be the case for this book – I love books that take you by surprise.  So many times, we have a limited perspective in what we read, and we automatically become biased.  I think Henríquez is trying to stay away from this particular type of bias in the novel.  She introduces you to a character, and just when you think you have that character figured out, he or she speaks for themselves, or vouches for themselves in a way.  For example, Quisqueya’s character is known as a busybody, and while she certainly does like to gossip with the neighbors or “stir the pot,” it is much easier for readers to sympathize with her (or at least it was for me), when we read her section in the novel.  Quisqueya says: “Later, I told my mother what he had done to me, but she didn’t believe it. She accused me of trying to ruin things for her.”  I think Henríquez wants her readers to see why Quisqueya is the way she is – her mother did not truly see her or want her, so she spent the rest of her life trying to be visible in whatever way possible.  Overall, Henríquez uses the multiple perspectives throughout the book as a great learning tool for readers to understand the characters in a better way than one would by getting a limited one-person perspective.