The Dirty Girls Social Club: A Novel - Softcover

Valdes-Rodriguez, Alisa

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312989245 ISBN 13: 9780312989248

Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2008

Synopsis

Meet the six unforgettable women who make up

The Dirty Girls Social Club

Lauren, the “caliente” columnist for the local Boston paper whose love life is making headlines... Sara, the perfect wife and mother who’s got it all but pays a high price... Elizabeth, the stunning black Latina whose TV anchor job conflicts with her intensely private personal life... Amber, the Valley girl who doesn’t speak Spanish but is fast becoming a huge rock star en Espanol... Rebecca, hyper-in-command in her glossy magazine world but clueless when it comes to men...and Usnavys, fabulous, larger than life, and at risk of falling head over five-inch Manolos in love....

No matter what happens to each of them, the Girls dish, dine, whine, and compare notes as they try to sort out the bumpy course of life and love. And what a wild ride it is!

About this title

Review:

The Dirty Girls Social Club closely resembles Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale: a handful of young women seek real love and job satisfaction. Unlike McMillan, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez has completely thrown out any literary pretensions whatsoever, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Dirty Girls is a fun, easy, ultimately charming read, not least because the girls themselves are so appealing. Six Latina women become fast friends at Boston University and thereafter meet as a group every few months. Now in their late twenties, they're each on the cusp of the life they want. The novel is narrated in turn by each woman. Feisty Lauren has a column at the Boston Globe, but can't help falling for losers; ghetto-elegant Usnavys is trying to find a man to match her own earning power and expensive tastes; uptight Rebecca is a successful magazine publisher and an unsuccessful wife; beautiful TV anchor Elizabeth has a secret; Sara leads a Martha-Stewart-perfect life as a homemaker; and Amber is a hopeful rock musician in L.A.

The novel works because Valdes-Rodriguez has compassion for her characters; each is faulted, but none is culpable. She also has an eye for the telling detail, as when Rebecca tries to befriend her white husband's stuffy family: "His sister took step classes with me and we shopped for clothes together on Newbury Street and went to the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum one afternoon with Au Bon Pain sandwiches in our handbags." Something about those sandwiches makes the whole enterprise seem more poignant. On the down side, Valdes-Rodriguez is so eager to make things work out for her ladies, her writing sometimes beggars belief. Men actually say things like "Swear to me you're happily married, and I'll stop pursuing you." Yes, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is, in fact, the Latina Terry McMillan. That is, if McMillan were a slighty guiltier pleasure. --Claire Dederer

About the Author:

ALISA VALDES-RODRIGUEZ, an award-winning print and broadcast journalist and a former staff writer for both the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, was named one of today’s 25 Most Influential Hispanics by Time magazine. She is the bestselling author of the novels Make Him Look Good and Playing with Boys, both available in paperback from St. Martin’s Griffin.  

www.alisavaldesrodriguez.com

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0312989245
• ISBN 13: 9780312989248
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368