The Dirty Girls Social Club: A Novel

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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.

ANNOTATION

Also available in a Spanish-language edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

As soon as it was written, The Dirty Girls Social Club began turning heads. The Chicago Tribune reported that the book "set off a bidding frenzy" among publishers. The Associated Press reported that "even people running the copy machines at the major publishing houses just had to read The Dirty Girls Social Club."
It's no wonder the media is all in a whirl. In this heartfelt and absorbing novel, Valdes-Rodriguez opens up the lives of six upwardly mobile Latina friends in their late 20's. These women, who come from widely varied backgrounds, meet at Boston University and, after graduating, meet every six months to share their stories. Facing the complications and pressures of everyday lives, the Social Club offers a chance to meet regularly, dish, dine, and help each other over the bumpy course of life and love.
Filled with humor, drama, and the redemptive power of friendship, The Dirty Girls Social Club promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.

About the Author:Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez is a journalist and a former staff writer for both the Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe. She is one of Latina Magazine's women of the year for 2002. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is her first novel.

FROM THE CRITICS

Baltimore Sun

...a memorable debut and a headily promising one...a fine novel...a work of depth.

Plain Dealer

This first novel delivers; let there be more.

Publishers Weekly

Valdes-Rodriguez's debut novel delivers on the promise of its sexy title, offering six lively, irreverent characters: the sucias ("dirty girls" in Spanish), who have been friends since college and get together twice a year to catch up. The book opens at just such a meeting, six years after they've graduated from Boston University, and takes us through an eventful year in their late 20-something lives. This diverse group of women defies stereotypes. There's reserved, conservative Rebecca, founder and editor of a magazine for Latina women, whose marriage to a preppy, Marxist theory-spouting academic is on the rocks; Sara, a full-time mom in Brookline, from a rich Cuban-Jewish family and married to an abusive husband; Usnavys, ambitious and entertainingly materialistic, who's an executive with United Way; Amber, a struggling singer and guitarist; Elizabeth, host of a Boston morning TV show and a born-again Christian; and Lauren, a feisty, hard-drinking newspaper columnist, half Cuban and "half white trash." The book addresses serious questions-prejudice, the difficulty of winning respect from Latino men-but balances them with enough budding (and dying) romances and descriptions of clothing and decor to satisfy any chick lit fan. The lively, humorous writing is peppered with Spanglish and attitude (watching Usnavys approach their meeting place, Lauren says, "Look at her. She just slid up to the curb out front in her silver BMW sedan.... She's on her cell phone. Wait, take two: She's on her itsy-bitsy cell phone. It gets smaller every time I see her. Or maybe she gets bigger, I can't tell. Girl loves her food.") This is a fun, irresistible debut. Agent, Leslie Daniels. (May 13) Forecast: Major early buzz-a bidding war; film rights sold to Sony-was clearly merited. Expect this first novel to sell strongly, particularly among urban Latinas. 12-city author tour. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Lauren, Rebecca, Elizabeth, Sara, Amber, and Usnavys ("oohs-nah'vees"), or the sucias (dirty girls), as they call themselves, have been friends for the past decade, since their days at Boston University. They're all Latina, but they're as varied as the culture itself, representing different shapes, sizes, religions, ethnicities, and skin tones. Their approach to being Latina is diverse, too, ranging from denial to cultural confusion to ultra-militancy. As close as sisters, these young women meet every six months in Boston and discuss their problems and their triumphs, but it is their unspoken secrets that add the edge to their relationships. Former Boston Globe journalist Valdes-Rodriguez has written an incredible first novel, told in six distinct voices and points of view. As each of the women speaks, the lives of the others unfold just a little bit more. The early buzz on this book already has the media calling Valdes-Rodriguez "the Latina Terry McMillan," but this is truly a universal friendship book, crossing cultural lines as the characters advise, comfort, and support each other. Highly recommended for popular fiction collections of all sizes. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/03.]-Shelley Mosley, Glendale P.L., AZ Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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