return to home  
Join   |  Gift   |  Member Login   |  Library Login
BookBrowse Mobile
Follow Us: 
   Summary and Book Reviews

This Is How You Lose Her: Summary and book reviews of This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz, plus links to an excerpt from This Is How You Lose Her and a biography of Junot Diaz.

This Is How You Lose Her

This Is How You Lose Her
by Junot Diaz
Hardcover: Sep 2012,
224 pages.
Paperback: 3 Sep 2013,
240 pages.

Publication information
Author Information
Critics' Opinion:   
Readers' Rating:    Not Yet Rated
About BookBrowse Rankings
Share: 
Buy This Book

BOOK SUMMARY

 Junot Díaz burst into the literary world with Drown, a collection of indelible stories that revealed a major new writer with the "eye of a journalist and the tongue of a poet" (Newsweek). His eagerly awaited first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, arrived like a thunderclap, topping best-of-the-year lists and winning a host of major awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. Now Díaz turns his prodigious talent to the haunting, impossible power of love.

The stories in This Is How You Lose Her, by turns hilarious and devastating, raucous and tender, lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weaknesses of our all-too-human hearts. They capture the heat of new passion, the recklessness with which we betray what we most treasure, and the torture we go through - "the begging, the crawling over glass, the crying" - to try to mend what we've broken beyond repair. They recall the echoes that intimacy leaves behind, even where we thought we did not care. They teach us the catechism of affections: that the faithlessness of the fathers is visited upon the children; that what we do unto our exes is inevitably done in turn unto us; and that loving thy neighbor as thyself is a commandment more safely honored on platonic than erotic terms. Most of all, these stories remind us that the habit of passion always triumphs over experience, and that "love, when it hits us for real, has a half-life of forever."
BookBrowse

...[I]t is to Díaz's enormous credit that Yunior and his coterie are so human, so absolutely lovable that you forgive their misdeeds. These are not people you might run into everyday, but Díaz's expert touch makes them pop and come alive. Great literature transcends plot and gives us a peek into the human condition. That is precisely what Díaz achieves to dazzling effect. He uses these broken love stories as the medium through which he addresses weightier themes.  (Reviewed by Poornima Apte).

Full Review Members Only (935 words).

Media Reviews

  O Magazine
Exhibits the potent blend of literary eloquence and street cred that earned him a Pulizer Prize... Diaz's prose is vulgar, brave, and poetic.

  Kirkus Reviews
Not as ambitious as Díaz's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), but sharply observed and morally challenging.

  Publisher's Weekly
Starred Review. Raw and honest, these stories pulsate with raspy ghetto hip-hop and the subtler yet more vital echo of the human heart.

  Library Journal
Starred Review. Díaz's third book is as stunning as its predecessors. These stories are hard and sad, but in Díaz's hands they also crackle.

  Booklist
Starred Review. Díaz's standout fiction remains pinpoint, sinuous, gutsy, and imaginative...

Recent Reader Reviews

New Jersey's Demographic Shifts

Junot Díaz's characters have a strong link back to their home country, the Dominican Republic, as they make northern New Jersey (aka North Jersey) their new home. These Dominican-American communities have a strong presence in Díaz's writing, even if specific cities or neighborhoods are not always referred to by name. Due to the same socio-economic factors that affect his characters - the jobs they find, the homes they live in - the real-life demographics of New Jersey are starting to shift.

map of New Jersey counties According to an article in the New York Times that reported statistics from the 2010 US Census, the non-Hispanic white population in the state decreased by over 300,000 to approximately 5.2 million, which researcher Tim Evans says is remarkable: "these are pretty astounding changes. It's another sign that New Jersey is on a similar path to California...

Continued...  Beyond the Book (members only)

Readalikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked This Is How You Lose Her, try these:


Brother, I'm Dying
by Edwidge Danticat

From the best-selling author of The Dew Breaker, a major work of nonfiction: a powerfully moving family story that centers around the men closest to Danticat's heart - her father, Mira, and his older brother, Joseph.

Love Begins in Winter
by Simon Van Booy

On the verge of giving up—anchored to dreams that never came true and to people who have long since disappeared from their lives—Van Booy's characters walk the streets of these stark and beautiful stories until chance meetings with strangers force them to face responsibility for lives they thought had continued on without them.


These are 2 of the 6 readalike suggestions for This Is How You Lose Her. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.


Become a Member
The Expats by Chris Pavone
Editor's Choice
  •  Jun 17 
  •  Jun 15 
  •  Jun 13 
Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Americanah Jacket

Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world.
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Karen Joy Fowler

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves Jacket

The story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
TransAtlantic
Colum McCann

TransAtlantic Jacket

The most mature work yet from an incomparable storyteller, TransAtlantic is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with...
Click Here
   Most Recent Blog Entries
Top Ten Guidelines For How to Behave in a Book Club
Movies Based on Books: Summer 2013 (May - August)
Jewish Themed Young Adult Books, Not About The Holocaust
rss  RSS   rss  subscribe
Recent Reader Reviews
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
First time novelist Vaddey Ratner captured my heart and senses in this novel based on her childhood in Cambodia. Her story transcends any news story... read more
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
From the first page, I was drawn in by the lyrical writing of the author and mesmerized as the narrator, eight year old Raami, remembered the years... read more
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
Trite but true, all good things must come to an end. I so wanted to keep reading the wonderful prose, the settings that let one think they are part... read more
RSS RSS feed More...  
Most Viewed This Week
1. Coraline
Neil Gaiman
2. Memoirs of a Geisha
Arthur Golden
3. The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
4. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot
5. Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Katherine Boo
More...
Book Club Recommendations
A Monster Calls
by Siobhan Dowd, Patrick Ness
Paperback (Mar/13)
The End of the Point
by Elizabeth Graver
Paperback (Feb/14)
Out of The Easy
by Ruta Sepetys
Paperback (Feb/14)
Maggot Moon
by Sally Gardner
Hardback (Feb/13)
More...
First Impressions
Members read and review books often months before they're published. See what they think in First Impressions!
Her Last Breath
by Linda Castillo
4.5 Stars            (Jun/13)
Children of the Jacaranda Tree
by Sahar Delijani
4.5 Stars            (Jun/13)
Crime of Privilege
by Walter Walker
Four Stars            (Jun/13)
More...
  Latest BookBrowse News
Kenn Nesbitt is new Children's Poet Laureate (Jun 12 2013)
Kenn Nesbitt has been named the new Children's Poet Laureate: Consultant in Children's Poetry to the Poetry Foundation, which noted that the two-year position... Full Story
rss RSS feed More...
 
BookBrowse Poll
Q: We've been discussing guidelines for book club etiquette. Which of these do you think are important?
Read the book
Listen thoughtfully to all members
Take notes while you're reading
Stay on topic when you're speaking
Enjoy yourself
Don’t get drunk
Bring chocolate, everyone likes chocolate!
Eat before you come so you don’t devour the snacks
Compliment others sincerely
Have a good sense of humor
Don’t fret the small stuff
Search: Title or Author
Free Newsletters

Online Book Club
More about
The Execution of Noa P. Singleton
Join the discussion!


Win This Book!
You Only Get Letters From Jail


one of the finest and truest collections of 'American' short stories I have ever read

Enter To Win Now!

wordplay
Solve this clue:
"T M T C, T M T Stay T S"

and be entered
to win....
frame top
New Author
Interviews
Carol Rifka Brunt
Kent Wascom
Jennifer McVeigh
Elizabeth Becker
frame bottom
HOME Book Submissions | Advertising | Library Subscriptions | Reviewing for BookBrowse | Contact Us