Editorial Review:
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Every year, Ceyala "Lala" Reyes' family--aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and Lala's six older brothers--packs up three cars and, in a wild ride, drive from Chicago to the Little Grandfather and Awful Grandmother's house in Mexico City for the summer. Struggling to find a voice above the boom of her brothers and to understand her place on this side of the border and that, Lala is a shrewd observer of family life. But when she starts telling the Awful Grandmother's life story, seeking clues to how she got to be so awful, grandmother accuses Lala of exaggerating. Soon, a multigenerational family narrative turns into a whirlwind exploration of storytelling, lies, and life. Like the cherished rebozo, or shawl, that has been passed down through generations of Reyes women, Caramelo is alive with the vibrations of history, family, and love.
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Reader Reviews for Caramelo:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: A family's story recounted over three generations
Comment: Sandra Cisneros storytelling ability kept me enthralled throughout the entire novel. Her characters are colorful, funny, poignant, arrogant, sympathetic, judgmental, forgiving and oh so real in their human foibles and triumphs.
I loved this book. I grew up in a family of nine kids and completely related to Lala's experiences as a member of a very large family. I love the family histories recounted by Lala, especially, The Awful Grandmother's story, with interruptions and revisions from The Awful Grandmother herself. Are these family histories fact or fiction? It doesn't matter. They are darn good stories. "Ceuntame algo, aunque sea una mentira." "Tell me a story, even if it's a lie."
Customer Rating:
Summary: I love this novel
Comment: I read "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros, and had enjoyed it. However, I had not read any of her other novels until I came upon this one. I found the title in a reading list at the back of another book, "How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez.
This book is interesting to me on many levels. First, it delves deeply into a complicated family relationship. Many of the themes resonate with me, because they remind me of my own family. My grandparents were immigrants from Italy, and the family dynamics between Italian families and Latino families are so similar. Perhaps that is because of the immigrant experience, as well.
This book explores those relationships against the backdrop of a Mexican family that emigrated to the U.S. So intertwined with family themes are all of the struggles of adapting to and living in a different country..specifically, Latino/Mexican struggles.
In order to explore these themes, the writer goes back in time as the granddaughter of the family, trying to learn more about her family's past.
I really loved this book for it's study of familial relationships, as well as it's focus on one Latino family's experience in the U.S.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Latino culture, the experiences of immigrants, as well as anyone who also has complicated family relationships and seeks to understand these more.
The book keeps your attention, and is very funny and entertaining in many parts, as well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: famiy first
Comment: Celaya, Lala for short, born in Chicago to a family with 6 sons, narrates this quasi-autobiographical novel that spans several generations of her Mexican heritage. My biggest difficulty was distinguishing the parents from the grandparents from the great-grandparents. Certainly one character stands out, and that is Lala's paternal grandmother, Soledad, known as The Awful Grandmother, who assists Lala in the chronicling of her family's history. There is definitely bad blood between Soledad and Lala's mother, Zoila, who has stolen Soledad's oldest and favorite son. Lala's father and his two brothers are upholsterers who leave their jobs every summer to make the trek to Mexico City to visit their parents. The pivotal event is a side trip to Acapulco. The book opens with a photo made in Acapulco and closes with a revelation that The Awful Grandmother made to Zoila during a whispered conversation on that trip. When The Awful Grandmother moves in with Lala's large, boisterous family after The Little Grandfather dies, the feud heightens, and the family moves to San Antonio. Lala becomes increasingly restless as a teenager and has to fend off harassment from schoolmates. By this time, The Awful Grandmother is providing solace and advice from the grave and helping Lala to accept her father's counsel that family, not friends, will come to your aid when you're in trouble.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Comment: This was a great book. I felt like I was in the story and could visualize what was going on. I enjoyed it immensely.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Poetic Lines
Comment: I started a reading binge with Caramelo. Cisneros is famed for her young people's book, Casa on Mango Street, and she definitely takes the adult plunge with this hefty book.
I wanted so much to love Caramelo. I can't say I didn't like it, but it was hard to get through. If Gilb builds poetry into his stories, Cisneros' talent is poetic lines that every few pages make you start to hunt for them. It helped me turn the pages. This is a novel I think that her many fans would love.
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