Bodega Dreams: a Great Novel

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Bodega Dreams: A Great Novel Bodega Dreams is the best book I have read in years, I loved it from beginning to end. The novel is full of suspense and wonder, round after round I was constantly thinking of what would happen next. Bodega Dreams begins different from any book I’ve ever read, it begins like this, “SAPO was different. Sapo was always Sapo, and no one messed with him because he had a reputation for biting” (3). In the very beginning there is a description of a character immediately and it works. I have no understanding as to why the author “Ernesto Quiñonez” started the story this way, but I do believe it was brilliant, mainly because it allows the reader to make an immediate connection to a character. Continuing in the very beginning the narrator speaks of his connection and feelings to “Sapo.” “I loved Sapo. I loved Sapo because he loved himself. And I wanted to be able to do that, to rely on myself for my own happiness” (3). So far in the story I have no Idea who is saying all of these things about “Sapo,” but I like how so much information is giving about these two characters in the very beginning (Sapo and the narrator). “Sapo” is Spanish for toad, and Sapo apparently looks like a frog according to his father who said “he looks like a frog” (4) when he was born. Having nicknames was important (like Sapo) in the neighborhood of the narrator, in the words of the narrator, “To have a name other than the one your parents had given you meant you had status in school, had status on your block. You were somebody. If anyone called you by your real name you were unmamao, a useless, meaningless thing. It meant that you hadn’t yourself, it was open season for anyone who wanted to kick your ass” (4) The narrator wanted to have a nickname and I actually enjoyed reading about the process he had to go through with his friend “Sapo” to earn his nickname.
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