Watch an interview with the author of Dark Dude, Oscar Hijuelos.
The Latino Book Club meets again on Saturday, 31st January at our usual joint: Francesco's Cafe.
Latino Book Club met for the first time this year this afternoon, and our good old faithful members Irene, Lizzy, Olga, and Cathy came out to Francesco's Cafe.
We all unanimously agreed that Oscar Hijuelos' Dark Dude did not meet our expectations and in Cathy's words we gave a grade of "D for the Dark Dude." This is Hijuelos' first attempt to write for teenagers, and maybe only teenagers should read this book, but we felt teenagers deserve better. Sorry for the harsh criticism but none of the issues of racism or drugs, etc actually came across. Hijuelos seems to try to aspire to create a Huck' Finn kind of character, but sorry to say Twain would have had a few interesting words to say if he read this book.
We certainly would like to hear from the rest of our 25 members. Please drop in a line on our blog site.
We are looking forward to our next month's read which was recommended by a colleague of mine: Loida Maritza Perez' Geographies of Home.
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1 comment:
I was determined to finish this novel as I couldn't the last two. Unfortunately I had to give up, not because I did not have the time, or just because it is a book directed to teenagers, rather because it is anything but captivating. It pretends to be like Twain's Tom Sawyer or Huck' Finn, but unfortunately it is nothing close to Twain's artistry. Hijuelos does not even capture the racism issues as promoted by the book cover. Specially after Piri Thomas and Junot Diaz, Oscar Hijuelos' tale of a struggling teenager during racist times fall short of its promise.
Sorry, it is just not my taste. I hope there are others who can say that they liked it.
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