Multicultural Latin American, Contemporary Chick Lit
UNDERNEATH IT ALL is women's fiction with a delicious
chick-lit flavor. Jacquelyn "Jacqs" Sanchez is looking
for love in all the wrong places, including her soon to be
remarried ex-husband. But that's not her overriding
concern. Jacqs' life is preoccupied by the lives and
loves of the people around her, near and far, from her
neurotic social climbing boss, the First Lady of San
Francisco, to her newly engaged best friend, Bina.
Somehow, someway, Jacqs gets caught up in everyone else's
drama. As she helps the people she cares about work
through their problems, Jacqs discovers the freedom to be
who she is and to decide what she wants in her life.
With a decidedly Latina flair, Ms. Candela demonstrates
that the aspirations—and life crises—of an educated
Hispanic woman in America are not much different than
those of women in any other culture. Her roundly
multicultural cast of characters affords her the privilege
of highlighting cultural uniqueness without dwelling on
the all too often negatives of race.
A quick, fun read, UNDERNEATH IT ALL will keep the reader
laughing with the hilarious images of people she's sure to
know, if not of herself. Ms. Candela brings a fresh and
much needed voice to the women's fiction genre.
In a traditional family, the last thing you can be is who
you really are, but it's time for Jacqueline Sanchez to find
the woman underneath it all...
Everyone has their role. My mother is the martyr, my father
the distant unapproachable figure, and Noel, with a few
brief stints in jail, is considered misunderstood, not a
handsome loser. Yolie is just outspoken, not a miserable
bitter shrew, which would be her clinical diagnosis in the
"real" world. And the rest of my brothers and sisters have
problems that my parents consider normal, like bad
marriages, unruly children, and too many bills. So is it a
surprise that I'm considered the troublemaker of the family?
Not happy at home? Move away for college. Hate your job?
Find another one. Fallen out of lust, er, love with your
husband? Divorce him. I, so far, am the anomaly--or
flake--in the family because I'm vocal about how unnecessary
it is to be unhappy, and how important it is to do something
about it to change your circumstances (thank you, Zoloft!).
If I had it my way, my whole family would be comparing
dosages at the dinner table the way some families talk about
sports or politics...
