this is how you lose her. junot diaz (86)

i wanted "this is how you lose her" to be my last book of 2012 but it ended up being my first book of 2013.

this has been on my radar since september, i loved "the brief and wondrous life of oscar wao" and so debated buying this book or checking it out. i went with the later.

"this is how you lose her" is a collection of stores in that demonstrate how you can lose a girlfriend, wife, fiancée, lover, by simply following the example of narrator, yunior. the last story is actually titled "the cheater's guide to love" in which he gives instructions on how to royally fuck up your life after cheating on your fiancee. there is also some random story from the perspective of a woman, yasmin, who worked in a hospital laundry room and the lover of a married man. i'm not sure why it was included other than the fact that she and yunior are both dominican. (maybe its to show the perspective of the "other" woman.)

the stories are tales of yunior's lovers and how their romances left him with a brokenheart. and before you pity him please note that his love life always went to shit because he couldn't keep his dick in his pants! the pendejo was always cheating! (if my language was too vulgar for your right now you might want to skip to book.) his lovers blamed his infidelity on his heritage. dominicanos are cheaters, his cheating was genetic; his father, his brother and he were all sucios (i googled and according to various sites it means a man who treats women poorly, a dirty man, sinful). though genetic may be the wrong word, it's more cultural, i mean stereotypes have some starting point. i don't know any dominicanos, so can not deny or verify this but all of the women avoid yunior like the plague, simply based on his race. but let's be honest, they reason they cheated most likely had to do with the fact that they are men.

we all know the whole men need to spread their seed.  but i have to add that women are not the better sex by default.  and the women of these stories do their fair share of cheating too.  i mean it does take two to tango when it comes to having an affair.  but in addition to that, they also use men for their money.  yunior's older brother gets screwed over by a woman who married him than took off with his money and his car after he died from cancer.  (now that is one fucked up bitch.)  yunior's best friend was swindled into believing he fathered a son in the dominican republic.  even yunior gets suckered into paying bills when he thinks he's a baby daddy.  it's horrible but kinda understandable considered they did it to provide for their children.

but back to the cheating.  i do not understand infidelity but at the same time i don't understand commitment. though i have to admit that i have tried to homewreck twice in my life though neither attempts were successful. plus one was in high school so it doesn't really count. i remember reading in this novel, "love monkey" that it was easier to get someone already in a relationship to fall in love with you because you only had to be better than that one person, their partner versus single people where you have to be better than all the infinite possibilities of partners in the world. which i found to be some good logic. but cheating is still wrong. and before you think i am throwing stones from a glass house, i never did anything with the people i was trying to homewreck, and wouldn't have until they broke up with their girlfriends.

the problem i have with cheating is the lying. i understand that love is finite, forever is a long time to love someone.  i mean even god has his off day with mankind. and yes it is hurtful to discover that someone has fallen out of "love" with you and in with someone else. but it's better to know about it versus having someone cheat and lie to you before it is exposed. it's bad enough knowing that you are unloveable why add extra lies on top of it. and yes, my reactions to cheating is all theoretical, i have never had to deal with a cheating partner. i have had to deal with a cheating stepparent, and was okay when i found out my stepdad was cheating on my mom. i wasn't hurt but then again never really loved him as a father in the first place. (this may sound harsh but when your first dad screws you over, you have low expectations for any other man that tries to follow suit). nor was i willing to forgive him, and found my mother stupid (this might sound harsh but really is the best adjective) for attempting to mend things. my view on the cheating is that once you cheat you are unworthy of my love, and i will no longer give it to you.  and for those who think, but s/he was my soulmate, that that is bs too because a soulmate would never cheat on you.  don't cheat people, have respect for your former lover and let them know what is going on. and if you are looking for a fling than your ass shouldn't have committed in the first place because you obviously are not ready for it.

so this is going to sound really harsh but after looking at junot diaz's photo on the inside cover, i can't imagine anyone wanting to cheat with him.  in my world, only hot people cheat, because how could one person, let alone two people want to sleep with an ugly?  btw, he's not ugly, just not my time.  i mean i guess i would sleep with him because i enjoy his writing.  i love his style of writing.  it's like elevated street talk, filled with pop cultural references, spanish slang, geek speak and clever imagery.  one of my favorite lines was "has a mouth like unswept glass when you least expect it she cuts you." it's a perfect description of those bitches that know how to cut your down just with their words.

with all of this great imagery, of course his stories are great (well sad because it's all about how he fucked up his love lives)  but as i read his stories, they felt way too autobiographical.  i mean i get that most of the time writers write about what they know best, themselves, but in this case, it's seems as if this works are really just his life and he changed names.  i felt the same way when i read "the brief wondrous life of oscar wao", oscar wao just him growing up.  it felt like i was reading a diary versus a novel.  however that could just be a testament to his writing, that it's so raw and real that you can't imagine it being made up.  so i guess kudos to him for making his stories so realistic.  (random digression:  but the premise of this book reminded me of a book, i wanted to write about my college years called "the asshole magnet" about how i attracted nothing about assholes in college.)

and in this new light, i highly recommend it, (i would have recommended it regardless, it's just that as i read i was like really dude this is just your life!).  it was a great start to my new year of reading, i just hope it does not foreshadow the kind of year my love life will have.