Welcome to Litsy!

After losing her job during the Great Recession of 2008, a middle aged Dominican woman interviews with a job assistance program, talking more about her life than her work experience. I loved the piecemeal form of this book, combining interviews and job applications to great effect. I also loved how the unpaid labor women so often take on was valued as much as paid work.

Hoping to make some progress on this one and Orbital during my flight today.

Early morning flight ready

Loved this. Book told in the voice of a Dominicana woman approaching retirement, going for interviews with a job placement agency. Nothing goes quite the way the interviewer planned...

Recommended. A quick read, and the short chapters would work well with a commute read or other short chunks of time.

Cara is in midlife and has been laid off. As a requirement of her unemployment benefits, she attends sessions with an employment counselor. This is the account of those visits, interspersed with the paperwork she completes. Cara is a good human to her soul. She loves fiercely, takes care of everyone around her to her own detriment. She doesn‘t always make the best decisions, but her heart is what matters. Excellent on audio. ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5 ❤️📚

This was such an amazing book! Having enjoyed “Dominicana,” I‘ve been wanting to read this one for a while.

I‘ve loved this story so much. And the audiobook narration was fantastic!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Finished this last night in candle light with the power out.
I really loved the format of this it is so unusual. You get Cara's side and only her side of all that is happening. It is basically a transcript of her talks with her employment counselor, but only her side. We can tell she often isn't the best person, but she is genuine and is trying to hold things together. I really enjoyed the writing.

"I think getting the [citizen] papers is like marrying someone who has no feelings for me. But also sometimes getting married has benefits."

This is such an apt description!

I haven't gotten to how not to drown yet, but I am finding out how not to freeze during a week long ice storm. Cats. Many cats.

#MayhemCat
#SereneCat

I wish I could remember where I heard about this book. Anyway, I gulped it down. I wanted to read it because of the structure - it‘s told like an interview- but I loved it because the poignant voice of the protagonist waxes honestly and eloquently about a hard but full life. There is tragedy, and heartache, but in the end it‘s a beautiful tale of community and resilience.

In less than 200 pages, we meet Cara who is telling her life story to a social worker in the required 12 sessions she must attend to renew her benefits. We meet her friends, her family, and the other tenants in her rent-controlled building. She‘s had a tough life, but is resilient beyond words. It‘s a good story with a few words in Spanish, but understandable.

On the 11th day of Christmas….

This was my favorite read in November. I read it in a whim on Thanksgiving and it was perfect. The characters were flawed, but so readable.

I absolutely loved this book. It had nothing to do with Thanksgiving, but it had great Thanksgiving vibes. Even though the characters were flawed I fell in love with them. Highly recommend.

The voice in this book is what stands out the most! I really appreciated getting to know the main character through this second-person lens. Also, seeing inside her head, the way she thinks, the way she makes me, the reader, think about her, just by being quiet, was a very cool experience.

Audio is definitely the way to go! Excellently narrated, featuring sound effects, the production really brought the story to life for me while I picked blueberries 🫐
Set up as a series of interviews with a workforce development department, 50 year old Cara shares her life experiences, including caring for neighbors, her relationship with her son, and much about her past and present in little Dominic Republic in NYC. A singular voice!

3 out of 5

Unpopular opinion: I couldn't stand the audio. The performance was fine, but I just didn't like the character much. I get what they were going for, and I know people like this exist (I'm from the east coast, I've met many). Maybe it is the stress of our impending move, but I just didn't have the patience to listen to her stories. Also, there is no way a security question form online would allow full paragraph responses.

Well, I'm not sure how this happened, but I read a feel-good book! 😄
Cara is a late middle-aged immigrant from the Dominican Republic living in Washington Heights, NY, during the 2008 recession. The novel takes the form of interview transcripts with Cara's job coach, which I initially found annoying but the first person narrative was actually well-suited for the story.
Cara is good-hearted but difficult to live with, and the story follows her ⬇️

"My name is Cara Romero, and I came to this country because my husband wanted to kill me."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

This audiobook reading is amazing and one of my favorites ever. The premise of the book was not quite something I was excited to pick up - a woman‘s sessions with a job counselor following the Great Recession job loss - but someone said the audiobook makes it. And it does. Cara is full of life and secrets and it‘s like listening to someone gossip right into your ears in the audio book. It‘s like an expansive Humans of New York interview. Loved

#bookhaul day. BOTM box came today, same day the Women's Prize long listed dropped!
I have been purging my books the last couple of months and have been getting a credit racked up at my local bookstore, getting ready for the list to drop. I picked up the WPLL books that were not available at the library but were available in the US and I have been wanting the Martha Wells series, and the tagged so threw that in because I had extra $ left!

Cool! This was a really fast read told in a creative way: as a series of interview notes from meetings between a job counselor and the main character. One thing I wonder is whether readers who don‘t know Spanish will feel like they‘re missing something. I liked that it switched seamlessly between the two languages but there isn‘t any translation, so it might be confusing.

An early morning flight allowed me the last 40 minutes I needed to finish this audio book — but it had me crying in the last 10! Good thing I had some tissues in my carry on. 🥹

I loved this book and it was FANTASTIC on audio. The producers added small touches that made it feel like you were in the room with the narrator as she was telling her life story through short vignettes. I‘m going to miss Cara Romero!

#FoodandLit
#Bookspin

Starting this one tonight on audio! I love the way the book is written as a conversation and the narrator really brings it to life.

This book will cover two 2023 challenges:
#FoodandLit Dominican Republic
#ReadHarder2023 (BookRiot) Listen to an audiobook performed by a person of color of a book written by an author of color.

Really great read about an aging immigrant finding employment and sharing her life story with her case worker. The forms were genius!

I‘m so sad it‘s over!!! Cara Romero is one of my new all-time favorite literary characters. This novel is brilliant. I actually listened to the audio and the voice actress was SO GOOD as well. It‘s basically the story of Cara‘s life as told, by Cara, to an employee of a job placement program. I cried at the end. Brilliant.

I want a Cara Romero in my life, she is so full of kindness, compassion, humor, selflessness, and spirit. What an extraordinary tale of humanity. Beautiful story.

Audio is the way to go with this book for sure.
#alltimefave

Loved this! Definitely in my top 5 of books read this year. The narrator's voice was so amazing that the words jumped off the page and made fantastic images in my mind. A quick read but I made myself savor it.

This novel is composed of a woman‘s interviews with her caseworker. The caseworker‘s side of the conversation is not recorded, so the text reads almost like diary entries. It is an utterly brilliant look at parenting, survival, family, and the stories we tell ourselves. The narrative is immersive and propulsive, and the language is perfectly rendered. I loved it.

Whew! The end of 2022 is flying by CRAZY fast!!!
I‘m reading Tomorrow, & tomorrow, & tomorrow 🤗 Still striving for better reading focus…

We picked the tagged for our end-of-Jan #RealLifeBookClub book…

Decorated a tree — minimal decos overall since we‘re traveling for the holidays this year…

#BOTM #BookoftheMonth picks…

Oh & loooved this fun holiday cup from #DutchBrothers… and the candy cane cocoa inside! 🥰

Happy December everyone! ❄️💙🌬️

🎧 Hearing Cara Romero ramble on about her life, her experiences, her mistakes, her musings, and her dreams was such a treat. The audio production was so beyond the normal reading. To hear the job applications as she completed them and footsteps and speaking doors really added something special. Cara Romero is the neighbor I wish I had. Funny, full of wisdom, and an open book, I loved Cara.

One of my favorite places in the world!❤ I so missed book events!

Yesterday, I started the Cruz on audio per a recommendation so strong it was not to be denied! and then just now, my library says this is available to me for 14 days. Looks like lots of dog walks in my future!
#audiobooks #highlyrecommended #audiowalking

Cara is from the DR, living in NYC for decades, and the factory she worked in for over 20 years has closed to move offshore for cheaper labor. She‘s at loose ends and struggling to find work. Set up as a series of sessions with a social worker, this book looks past the surface and shows how complicated things can be. It‘s a great exploration of nuance about an issue (immigration) that so many want to oversimplify.

Exceptional audiobook!

A lifetime of experience is distilled in twelve quick sessions. Read my full review here: https://debbybrauer.org/#how-not-to-drown-in-a-glass-of-water

Publication is expected September 13.

#NetGalley #MacmillanAudio #StMartinsPress #HowNottoDrowninaGlassofWater

Cara Romero needs to find a job for the first time in a long time and has to meet with a job counselor to keep her benefits. Instead of focusing on getting a job, Cara starts telling the counselor her life story over a twelve session span, and we get to know her through her life journey. She is a daughter, a mother, a friend, and we really find out who she is through these relationships.

Also releasing next week.. I‘m still processing this one. A quick read, and another one set around the 2008 recession: Cara loses her job in her 50s and is back in the job market for the first time in decades; the story is told and structured via her meetings with a job counselor over twelve weeks.