This was an incredibly powerful, heart wrenching and heart warming, intimate book about how Carmen Aguirre dealt with the after effects and the long term impact of a brutal rape as a child. James is confused and distraught, as he was well in love with Maria and desired to marry her, but rather than talking this out and seeing their relationship could continue, she just took off and him holding the empty bag. The subject matter is dark and she went through so much but she does add lightness and humour to it which I don't think I could do. During a mid-term evaluation, program administrators at her theatre school said she'd only be offered "Mexican hooker and Puerto Rican maid roles. Initially I wanted more of this book to be about her adventures in the Southern Hemisphere but realized there was a totally different story to be told.

she won me over with her willingness to reinvent herself, to get up and start over from an awareness of humiliation and defeat, as circumstances demanded, without giving up her ambitions. How she took the risk of a personal meeting with her rapist many decades later, just reiterates what a brave person she is and this shows in the writing of this memoir. C. Performers’ Lorena Gale Woman of Distinction Award, and the 2002 New Play Centre Award for Best New Play, for The Refugee Hotel. At the same hearing, Oughton told the room that he'd grown up with buckteeth and that kids made fun of him for that. A powerful, heartfelt, and grippingly honest memoir of finding meaning in life and developing the strength to confront a childhood trauma.The structure brings you into different ages and aspects of her life seemingly randomly at first, but soon you realize how each era and story folds back and forward with the rest. Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. I also appreciated learning about her experiences as one of the only Latino theatre artists in Vancouver. Like train tracks, they ran parallel, my ten-year-old self the only point of intersection if I lay down and spread my limbs apart like a snow angel. Though the rape and its aftermath are told in graphic, vulnerable detail later in the book, the first half contains just quick mentions of it, perhaps to tell the reader Aguirre is not a maniac, but she experienced the maniacal.

The product description of this book piqued my interest, the story background certainly lent itself to a insightful book with a strong narrative. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. But I stumbled upon this drink and figured "Hey, more people should know about this nasty concoction. As Aguirre’s body becomes the repository of many kinds of violence, acting means resilience for the actress. To have my immigrant story disbelieved by the mainstream since arriving in Canada, to have hidden my true identity during my underground years in South America, to have the man who changed the course of my intimate, erotic life deny that he was the antagonist of one of my key narratives. A stunning follow-up to Carmen Aguirre's bestselling and Canada Reads-winning first book, Something Fierce .

Aguirre’s memory is vivid, and her references to the clothes she wore (“my pumps, satin leggings, and butterfly belt buckle”) and the background music she enjoyed (“Seasons in the Sun,” “She Drives Me Crazy”) contextualize her recollections and make her experiences universal, especially to women who grew up in the same period. The author's life as a teenager was not focused on here, since that was portayed in detail in "Something Fierce". I'm glad she gained something from all the "put-downs" and was able to come out the other side a stronger artist.S. both as a child and as an adult looking for work give insight into the difficult experience of the undocumented.

A lot of her references also lacked context so I felt very lost at times and was tempted to just skim over parts of the book. Particularly jarring is her account of the “mock firing squad” she and younger sister Ale experienced when little more than toddlers.

carmen puts all her cards on the table, lays bare her soul and i need time after each brief sojourn to cry and to absorb the highs and lows she so eloquently and somehow within that eloquence, very bluntly rolls out to you.