Stories of Little Women and Grown-up Girls Review
Stories of Little Women and Grown-up Girls is a wise book in which its protagonists, even in the most adverse of circumstances, whether gently or going against social conventions, actively participate in the creation of an alternative culture that is mestiza, feminist and cosmopolitan, as well as committed to a transformation of patriarchal society and the myths that it sustains about women. Through agile and precise language tender at times, scrawny when necessary erotism, and sometimes ironic and extremely bitter humor in some stories, take us through well elaborated plots with unpredictable endings that are impossible to put aside once we have started to read them. The book contains ten short stories in which the protagonists differ in age, nationality, the problems they face, and personality, but share several fundamental characteristics: they are the subjects of their destinies, not the objects, even when sometimes this decision comes from their unconscious and is expressed in the honesty and bravery with which they face life. The second characteristic that unites them is the way in which they reflect about themselves and their circumstances,which are sometimes heartwrenching. They are not sorry for themselves and do not feel guilty for their mistakes and misadventures that could hold them back from acting and making the decisions they need to make in order to change the situation that burdens them. They do what they have to do without sentimentalism and without lurking in their pain. They act with a sincerity that drives the reader to feel a profound empathy for these characters. In the Deepest Seed of the Lemon, during a discussion which concludes with a sentence which leaves the reader perplexed by its sagacity and bitter irony, Martirio, the woman from New York, and RocĂo, from Habana, expose their reasons, which are legitimate in both cases, why they defend their decisions, one for living in Cuba, the other for living in the United States.
