This weekend I finished the book Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros. And I was very impressed.

At first the book started out a little slow. Being that it was about Mexico and the Mexican culture which I don't know much about and with every page or so filled with some Spanish words (I don't speak Spanish), I thought, uh-oh, I was wrong in choosing this book. But, after reading about 50 pages, I was hooked.

I was surprised to find that many of the Spanish words were easy to figure out, they were explained in English or if they weren't I didn't seem to be missing out on anything. Also, I really enjoyed the footnotes at the end of each chapter which went into a little more detail about something that was discussed that the English readers wouldn't be familiar with. There were notes on such things as the government at the time, the culture and the city. I even learned a few things. And I found some awesome quotes!

"Like the saying goes, God squeezes, but he doesn't choke."

"A dream is a poem the body writes. Even if we lie to ourselves in the day, the body is compelled to speak it's truth at night."

The story is told from Lala's point of view. We are given glimpses into her life and also taken back into stories from her grandmother and mother. I really enjoyed the older stories, it seemed to give a good background on the family.

1 out of 5 I'd give this book a 4, maybe 4 1/2. It doesn't earn a 5 only because there were a few points where the story dragged. Most of the time though, the 400+ pages flew by.