36 pages • 1 hour read
Junot DíazA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
“I’m not a bad guy.”
Yunior’s declaration is to explain how he failed with Magda. But as the first sentence of the first story, and thus the book, this sentence effectively works as thesis for the collection. It asks the reader to analyze whether this statement is indeed true.
“And that’s when I know it’s over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it’s the end.”
“Nilda was my brother’s girlfriend. That’s how all these stories begin.”
“Nilda” is the second story in the book, and these are among the very first sentences. It is the first introduction to Rafa, setting the tone for Yunior’s relationship with his older brother. It implies Rafa had many girlfriends for Yunior to crush on. Yunior is 14 in this story, and his still-underdeveloped sexual persona that will become consistently unfaithful is influenced by Rafa, who harbors a multitude of hypermasculine traits.
By Junot Díaz