Vignettes navigate the ‘the lessons of love’

Picture courtesy of Creative Commons

Cayla Bush / Contributing Writer

“This is How You Lose Her” hands the reader nothing in terms of moral lessons and ideals and everything in terms of personal conflict and cognitive dissonance.

Junot Diaz, author of the collection of vignettes that make up the book, pens the fragmented story of Yunior as he navigates the lessons of love beginning in his adolescence and into adulthood.

Written mostly in first person, Diaz spins tales of passion, lust and heartbreak. Yunior narrates his recollection of failed relationships and personal shortcomings, sort of an analysis of where things have gone wrong with each woman in his life.

“I’m not a bad guy,” the simple declaration that opens the book and introduces the readers to Yunior, is a challenge to the readers to decide for themselves whether it’s true or not.

It’s never easy – the reader becomes as conflicted about their feelings towards the narrator as he himself is.

One of the many strengths of the book is having a multifaceted, fully developed character that stands on his own and remains the most memorable, even with at least a dozen supporting characters throughout. Diaz utilizes the narrator’s analysis of himself, his actions, his friends and the women he dates and loves, to create a relatable person, rather than a lofty character.

With each vignette a little more of Yunior is developed, through use of crude language, Spanglish, “nerd jargon,” emotional revelations and epiphanies and a myriad of other descriptive qualities. To know Yunior is to understand that he’s a romantic, serial cheater, nerd, educator, son, brother and so much more.

Some vignettes, such as the one describing Yunior’s process of dealing with his older brother’s illness or the ones in which Yunior deals with depression as a result of a failed relationship, will have readers saying Yunior is in fact a good guy. Others, such as the ones in which Yunior describes his cheating habits, will cause readers to insist he’s all bad. You feel bad for the younger narrator, then grow to dislike him as he matures; in the end, I realized I’d come to love him, regardless of the type of person I felt he was.

It’s Diaz’s knack for sparking thought and indirectly challenging readers that makes the book worth reading; Yunior’s conflict and discovering aspects of yourself through the character makes it worth recommending to a friend.

My Rating: 5/5

Goodreads: 3.7/5

Bookmarked is a bi-weekly column published every other Monday. To suggest a book, email Cayla at cayla.bush@fiusm.com