Book Review: An In-depth Analysis of Julia Alvarez's 'Yo!'

This book review critically analyzes Julia Alvarez's novel 'Yo!', focusing on the protagonist Yolanda's experiences and relationships. The review explores Yolanda's struggle with identity, her relationships with her husband, family, and doctor, and the impact of cultural identity and language. It highlights themes of miscommunication, mistrust, and mental health, examining how Yolanda's fragmented sense of self is reflected in her interactions and speech. The review also delves into the symbolism within the novel, such as the raven, to understand Yolanda's fears and desires. Ultimately, the analysis concludes that Yolanda's cultural heritage and the disrespect shown towards it created barriers in her interpersonal relationships and contributed to her mental distress, leading to incoherent speech and thoughts.

Running head: BOOK REVIEW
Book review
Name of the Student
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Author Note

1BOOK REVIEW
Julia Alvarez is a writer and writes on different genres like poetry, novels, children’s
books and essays. This review will critically analyze a story from her novel ‘Yo!. The novel
revolves around a female protagonist Yolanda (Juliaalvarez.com). It portrays her relationship
with her husband and doctor, who becomes an object of her indulgence. She is misunderstood for
Joe in English, nicknamed ‘Yo’ in Spanish, and pronounced and doubled like Yoyo, the toy.
Yolanda is torn between different cultures and places. She finds her identity and name to
constantly slip. She is fond of poetry and lives in language and rhymes (Scopemed.org).
The novel is an unmistakable portrait of Yolanda as a woman, daughter, wife, lover and
artist. It establishes the character of people around her like her husband John, he parents and
doctor. At the beginning it is seen that Yolanda stands by the window at a mental institute and
watches a man with a tennis racket. The objects present in the room were named by her and she
described her personal relationships. Yolanda imagined instances when she flirted with her
husband John amidst constellations on a riverbank. She had a penchant for poetry and often used
to rhyme words during conversations with her husband. Yolanda rhymed his name with ‘pond.’
However, John failed to rhyme her name with any other word. When she pointed out that her
name matched with cielo that stands for sky in Spanish the fact that John did not appreciate her
language and cultural connections (Articles.latimes.com).
Soon Yolanda started to mistrust her husband when she was rebuked for being crazy. She
was also said that she needed a shrink. A sense of mistrust was created in the protagonist on the
list of pros and cons that her husband had made for marrying her. These events draw the human
complexity of her character (Bibliotecadigital.ufmg.br).

2BOOK REVIEW
Yolanda’s marriage was unsuccessful by the fact that her sense of mistrust hurt her and
made her realize that John thought her to be too crazy and intelligent for her own betterment.
When he tried to kiss and make love to her, she screamed and cried out ‘No!’ Her gradual
descent into mental disorientation and communication inability with her dear ones is reflected by
self-dissolution. Words played a particular significance in her life. However, her incapability to
understand what John spoke speaks of the gap in her communication skills and that lead to
meaningless transformation of words into garbled babbles (Gaffney, Karen).
While at her parent’s house she could speak only in literature related misquotations or of
songs that she had heard. She consulted Dr. Payne for her therapy and he made her follow
compliance to treatment at a mental hospital. Though, she was distressed while going to the
hospital, she gradually started to fall in love with him. She felt allergic to words that were related
to love or alive. These thoughts reflect her mental breakdown and her fragmented identity. This
fragmented self sense was triggered by her divorce related heartbreak.
Moreover, the adulteration of her name to Yo, Yoyo, Josephine and Joe represent the
dissolution that she faced in her self-identity. The later insistence on being called by her original
name reflects the strong desire to heal the psychological and emotional entities of her life. While
watching Dr. Payne with his racket, she visualized a big black bird come out of her throat and
perch on her bureau. It tore at his chest. The raven represents her fear of her own words and
language that could hurt lived ones. Her attraction to the doctor was under threat from the
aggressive words that she utters (Periodicos.ufsc.br). These words symbolized the bird. The free
movement of the bird across the window screen depicted that if she stopped misquoting, she
would be able to speak her mind.

3BOOK REVIEW
Thus, it can be concluded that Yolanda’s culture, heritage and language made it difficult
for her to connect with her family members. The disrespect shown towards her cultural identity
and name created a barrier in developing interpersonal faith and relation. Her mental distress also
took a toll on her health. This led to the development of incoherent speech and thoughts.

4BOOK REVIEW
References
Articles.latimes.com. "A Literary Dance, A Merengue Of Words : YO! By Julia Alvarez;
Algonquin Books Of Chapel Hill $18.95, 320 Pages." Latimes, 2017,
http://articles.latimes.com/1997-01-20/news/ls-20324_1_julia-alvarez.
Bibliotecadigital.ufmg.br. "Cite A Website - Cite This For Me." Bibliotecadigital.Ufmg.Br,
2017, http://www.bibliotecadigital.ufmg.br/dspace/bitstream/handle/1843/ECAP-9FRJL7/
est_v_o_carvalho_batista___the_language_of_names_in_julia_alvarez_s_how_the__garc_a_girl
s_lost_the.pdf?sequence=1.
Gaffney, Karen. "Julia Alvarez, ¡ Yo!." Springerlink, 2017,
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781403982254_3.
Juliaalvarez.com. "Novels By Julia Alvarez." Juliaalvarez.Com, 2017,
http://www.juliaalvarez.com/novels/.
Periodicos.ufsc.br. "Cite A Website - Cite This For Me." Periodicos.Ufsc.Br, 2017,
https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/fragmentos/article/viewFile/8204/7688.
Scopemed.org. "Assessment Of Interpersonal Communication Skills Among Sari Health
Centers� Staff -." Scopemed.Org, 2017, http://www.scopemed.org/?mno=172081.