Ordinary Girls
A Memoir

Jaquira Diaz writes from her heart, and this is her story to tell. The best kind of nonfiction reads as fiction, and Ordinary Girls is just that. Jaquira Diaz grows up in the housing projects of Puerto Rico and Miami. Her family is broken, and her mother is diagnosed with schizophrenia. Jaquira is se......more

5 stars "For the girls they were, for the girl I was, for girls everywhere who are just like we used to be. For the black and brown girls. For the girls on the merry-go-round making the world spin. For the wild girls and the party girls, the loudmouths and troublemakers. For the girls who are angr......more

This is a book about legitimate life battles, a memoir of a rebel not because she did whatever she wanted and bucked society’s preconceived notions of what a poor Puerto Rican girl should be but rather because she spiraled down the worst of paths and pushed through it all: addiction, self hatred, dy......more

An exceptional autobiography that seems even more relevant as days of the White Majority inundate our heads, intrude upon our dreams... "Ordinary Girls" seems like a lucky tome containing a turbulent life that was able to see the light of day. Here is a fighter--Jaquira seems to get away with visitin......more