Good debut novel in beautiful packaging (deckle edge, smaller size, color art of all the Loteria cards starting each "chapter"). The story is told through the journal of 11 year old Luz, who is writing a memory that serves to advance the storyline associated with each Loteria card that she comes to in turn. The voice of the journal entries I can believe is that of an 11 year old girl, though the overall structure here too obviously bears the imprint of the adult author, taking me out of the illusion somewhat.

The story is of a dysfunctional Mexican-American family breaking apart. The trouble is that Papi is an abusive alcoholic who should be locked up for spousal and child abuse. Mom has physical fights with him. Luz and her sister Estrella hide and suffer as they must, though Luz feels a love and bond with her Papi nevertheless that she can't help. This comes through her journal entries pretty touchingly, I think.

One thing I could have done without was the constant insertion of Spanish phrases and sentences. Their inclusion doesn't really make sense from the point of view of the character: Luz was born in America and tells about her difficulty with Spanish and refusing to speak Spanish to her relatives, so why is she so peppering her personal journal with Spanish. Even when she's quoting someone she should be translating it to English to stay in character.

I suppose it does make sense in terms of marketing the book, as part of branding it as "Mexican-American". So there you go. ( )

Years ago, when I added this to my to-read list, I somehow thought it would have been a much more uplifting novel than it ended up being. Which is ok, not everything needs to end on a good note, but I was none the less disappointed. I listened to the audiobook version of this, and I think I suffered for it, as I'm not very familiar with the cards mention in the novel, and the physical copy apparently has lovely illustrations.
Still, it was a well-written novel from a cultural voice I don't hear much from. ( )

Beautiful illustrations of the loteria cards, which prompt each chapter. ( )

I was surprised by Lotería, it was a very short read and very good. The story is told from a girl's diary and each entry is determined by what card from the loteria game is pulled. It goes back and forth from present time to the past showing what is happening in the center and why she ended up there. The characters were well defined and I feel like the author did a good job at telling a story of domestic abuse from a young girl's point of view. ( )

With her older sister Estrella in the ICU and her father in jail, eleven-year-old Luz Castillo has been taken into the custody of the state. Alone in her room, she retreats behind a wall of silence, writing in her journal and shuffling through a deck of lotería cards. Each of the cards’ colorful images—mermaids, bottles, spiders, death, and stars—sparks a random memory.

Pieced together, these snapshots bring into focus the joy and pain of the young girl’s life, and the events that led to her present situation. But just as the story becomes clear, a breathtaking twist changes everything.

This book was stippled with Spanish aphorisms and phrases, and included an impressive amount of vocabulary in-context, to help teach Spanish to non-speakers. A full deck of Lotería cards is presented back-to-front, to mark the chapters, as if the reader is flipping a card when turning the page, reminiscent of Isabelle Allende and Salvador Plascencia’s magical realism. Image result for loteria el nopal

“I didn’t feel like remembering today so I laid out the cards close to each other so that they were touching like tiles, like El Nopal.” (175).

Luz associates her memories with the Lotería cards, using them to prompt her, to spark her memories. Than she writes about it in her journal. As we read her diary — addressed to “You”, always capitalized, in reference to the reader, or in reference to a higher power — we understand the trauma she is trying to run from.

The Arañas, the spiders, represent the memories that haunt Luz. Ghosts. They “creep around in the dark when you’re not looking” (2). And she wants to “smash this spider” (6), she wants to forget. “But when I raise my hand and close my eyes I hear her scream.” (6). Image result for loteria cards la aranaImage result for loteria cards chalupa

In La Chalupa, Luz recalls the riddle to La Rosa (“Ven que te quiero ahora.”) and philosophically reasons with her journal and the reader. She emphasizes the dual meaning in the use of the word quiero, which can mean either want or love, and how neither could truly be love:

And because quiero can mean either want or love, I asked if it meant “I want you” or “I love you.” Come here, because I love you, or, come here, because I want you? If you were saying to someone, come to me, then the person you love’d wasn’t there, and if you had to tell someone to come to you then maybe he didn’t love you. And to want someone to come to you is like an order. If you have to order someone to come to you, how much love is that anyway? (13).

The entire novel raises questions on important issues, like gender, sexuality, and the complications that arise for Mexican Americans who grow up caught between two cultures.

Image result for loteria cards la mano

They’d pinch me if I called something a boy instead of a girl, or the other way around. Why is it La mano instead of El mano? I can think of Papi’s hands and think they’re masculine, then think of Mom’s and think they’re feminine. If we were talking about the hands of a clock it could go either way. The hands of a clock could be bi. (85-86).

Rather than integrating the traditional riddles into her memories, Luz writes her own riddles, and begins to associate her life to the 54 Lotería cards. By writing in her journal and using the cards to prompt her memories, the reader relives the ‘accident’ with Luz; as the deck of cards is flipped, the story unfolds, piece-by-piece. In this way, she allows herself to remember, allows herself to feel the pain she is blocking out. Image result for loteria cards barril

“No te olvides de dónde vienes.”

Like if I would forget.” (62).

Memory is a large theme in the novel: remembering, forgetting, knowing and not knowing. There is a difference between not knowing and forgetting, and forgetting something on purpose. Luz is not too proud to admit when she did not know something. In fact, the novel is littered with her asserting what she did not know, at the time. (“I didn’t know,” (11)) She often writes her regrets: “Because if I didn’t have fingers or hands maybe none of this would’ve ever happened.” (51). It is obvious that she is remorseful, sorry for whatever it is that happened, but it remains unclear until the end of the novel what she has to be sorry for. Zambrano’s writing remains mysterious and full of twists, until the very last chapter.

“She used to say , forgive and forget, but I don’t think she believed it, because how can you forget about the things you feel?” (157).

By the end of the novel, the reader can work out themes of domestic violence and sexuality, but more than anything this novel is about working through pain, memory, and forgiveness. Not only must the characters forgive each other – they must forgive themselves.

I could not put it down, and finished it in less than 24 hours. ( )