Finding Miracles

Prior to reading "Finding Miracles" I had been reading a story similar to it (Called "Somebody's daughter") that followed the same genre but instead of it being about a Spanish (Hispanic, whatever) girl, it was about a Korean girl (who wasn't looking for her parents, but was wondering what her native country was like.) It `twas boring. Getting off that subject, I have to say that I enjoyed "Finding Miracles" very much. Written in 1ST -Person, I could really understand the emotions of the main character Milly Kaufman and her so-called struggle to learn what little she knew of her past and more when she traveled to her best friend's (Pablo) country despite the objections her family (especially her sister, Kate, who apparently was born in Pablo's country too) to her going. The only problems I had with this story was the fact that Milly was such a cry-baby in this story; If her parents got angry at her, she would start crying while making up an excuse for herself at the same time (that was just unbelievable in terms of normal teenage reactions. It felt like she was trying to get her parents not to punish her). And if she started sobbing about something -- mostly her native country she wanted to go to - everyone in her family - excluding her grandmother and other distant relatives- started crying. How unrealistic can you get with drama? If I started crying about something trivial like that, I declare my parents would tell me to hush up about it. All in all "Finding Miracles" was not a bad story. I enjoyed it very much as I have said before. (July 23d, 2005)

Finding Miracles is a refreshingly original story. This is the first text that I have read from Alverez and I enjoyed the infussion of spanish in the text and the unpredictable plot. The characters are on the edge of normal but believable. Alvarez takes into account all of the culturaly diverse traits of each character. The reason I rated the book 4 statrs instead of 5 is that I feel that there are alot of loose ends at the end of the book. Maybe there could be another book. Joi

Julie Alvarez's ("How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent") newest novel "Finding Miracles" is the story of Milly Milagros Kaufman, a typical all-American, half-Jewish high schooler with a not-so-typical secret: Milly was adopted as an infant from a war-torn Latin American country, where her adopted parents were serving in the Peace Corps. Milly has managed to successfully keep this info from her best friend Em, friends Jake and Dylan, and the community at large, because thinking about her sickly beginnings at an orphanage dredged up too many painful questions about why she was abandoned at the doorstep, who her birth parents may have been and if they "disappeared" during the dictatorship. Milly is forced to confront her past when Pablo Bolívar joins her grade at high school. Pablo and his parents are refugees from Milly's home country (which is never named). One of his uncles was murdered, one of his brothers is a prisoner, and the other a revolutionary. Pablo asks Milly to help him with English in exchange for practicing Spanish, and one day makes a comment that changes Milly's life: he tells her that her eyes look like those of the mountain village Los Luceros. Also, Milly overhears an angry family discussion in which her unhappy grandmother Happy effectively writes her out of her will as she is not a "blood" relation. Milly begins to slowly examine her feelings by confronting "The Box," a mahogany box containing her adoption papers, naturalization papers, two locks of hair (one light, one dark), a coin, and several photos, and in a brave speech running for a class office, tells the story of her adoption to the school at large. The second half of the novel chronicles Milly's journey to her homeland. When Milly's home country is freed from tyranny and democracy is slowly put into place, she takes up Mrs. Bolívar's invitation to visit, searching for traces of her shadowy past. Milly and Paco become more than just friends, bonded by the shared sadness of having lost loved ones in the war. The novel does not have a "fairy tale" ending where everything works out perfectly, but the ending provided a satisfying conclusion to Milly's journey. Realistically written and beautifully described, Alvarez captures a girl torn between cultures, languages, and her past, and how Milly, now Milagros, makes all the pieces fit.