Dreaming in Cuban

Dreaming in Cuban by Christina Garcia was a very good novel about a family and how they coped after the Revolution. Story jumps from the different points of view of the family members through three generations. After Castro takes over Cuba, the del Pino family is split between following El Lider or have Cuba the way it used to be. The eldest daughter leaves with her family to the USA and her father later follows. The remaining members of the family, Abuela Celia, Felicia and her three children experience the hardships of rations and censorship.

I really enjoyed this book because the author did a great job of portraying the passion between the two sides of the Revolution in one family. I really rooted for each character and their individual feelings. One thing that really stood out to me is how miserable the lives of all the female characters were. With no exception, they were all unhappily married, crazy, dealing with cheating husbands, abuse, self loathing, deranged mother's in law, lost loves, abandonment issues and paranoia. It makes me think that the author went out of her way to ensure that the reader knew how much a Cuban woman suffers. But it was fascinating to read about their experiences. I recommend this book to anyone. It's not as filled with "spiritual symbolism" and the like, like Sandra Cisneros or Isabel Allende and I think that is why I liked it.

Patron Stories

I was told I "ROCK" today. Yes, that's right. I ROCK! I think that is the best compliment I have received since I became a librarian. I always post the ridiculousness of my patrons but today I wanted to give me a pat on the back. I had a patron that could not print out a document from his thumb drive. I thought it was because we don't have the program that he used to create it. But he insisted that he created in Word. He was so baffled and confused that he brought out his laptop and I walked him through it. Of course the problem was that he created it in with the new Vista Word program. Yea. If you save it with the Vista program these older computers (i.e. those created before 2007) cannot read the file. How convenient for Microsoft. So I figured out how to save it as a Word 1997-2003 document. He was able to save it to his thumb drive and we were able to print it. TA DA!!! And that is why I ROCK.