How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water - Angie Cruz - ★★★

AUTHOR: Angie Cruz

NARRATORS: Kimberly M. Wetherell & Rossmery Almonte

GENRE: Contemporary Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: September 13, 2022

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: A contemporary fiction presented in a creative interview-style structure. If you are tired of reading about Asian aunties, here’s a book with a South American "auntie". 😁 Interesting story and lead character, excellent OwnVoices authenticity (Dominican Republic). Starts off excellently, but gets a little bit repetitive and OTT after a while. If you want to read this, audio is the way to go.

Plot Preview:

Fifty-six-year-old Cara Romero, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, used to work at a factory but ever since its closure two years ago, she’s been jobless. Cara is now set up to meet with a job counsellor. Over a course of twelve sessions where the counsellor is supposed to evaluate Cara’s suitability as an employee and the industry where she might fit best, Cara ends up telling the counsellor about her life so far, including her years in the Dominican Republic, her reason for migrating, and her relationships with her younger sister Angela, her neighbour Lulu, and her estranged son Fernando.

The story comes to us in Cara’s first-person perspective, with the presentation being in an interview format, albeit one-sided.

We’ve recently seen a few quality books presented in documentary-interview format (‘Daisy Jones & the Six’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid and ‘The Favourites’ by Layne Fargo being the best.) This novel is somewhat similar in structure, but also different. This writing choice is what will make or break your reading experience.

Unlike the documentary narratives, we get a more realistic scenario of a candidate responding to practical questions related to employment. However, the questions are never a part of the narrative. Almost the entire book comes to us from Cara’s point of view and contains her responses to whatever was asked. This is where the format struggles a bit. As most of what we hear comprises Cara’s responses, the novel feels more like a first-person narrative than an interview, even though Cara speaks directly to the interviewer a few times within her answers.

My experience of the storytelling started off on a high note, but after a while, saturation set in. My feelings are hence somewhat mixed, though the audiobook was a winner in every way.

✔ The innovative storytelling structure. I especially enjoyed the interludes that highlighted the paperwork Cara needed to fill out; brilliant!

❌ The missed opportunity of including questions in an interview-format book to make it more well-rounded for the reader/listener.

✔ Cara’s larger-than-life personality, her sense of humour, and her gutsiness. She is a great lead in many ways. But more importantly, she is a flawed lead, which makes her even more compelling.

❌ One flaw is that Cara can be quite annoying. I was reminded of Vera Wong so many times! (Though, between the two, Cara is better, methinks.)

✔ Cara’s interview responses, which range from funny to emotional to even intrusive.

❌ Her answers are almost like stream-of-consciousness rambling: entertaining but also a bit tricky to follow. Further, she gets unrealistically TMI at times. Who wants to hear "he was sticking it in me" details during a job interview?

✔ Great themes. An excellent representation of various aspects of an America not covered in fiction.

❌ Everything happening to a single character beggars belief after a point.

✔ Many one-liner gems thanks to Cara’s earthy wisdom. Simple in language but deep in impact. Sample this: "If you try to fix something that somebody do [sic] not want to fix, they will hate you for it."

❌ The saturation in the experience, thanks to twelve non-stop sessions listening to Cara go on and on. The one-sidedness of the interview doesn’t help.

✔ The significance of the title, which comes out in one of the interviews. Suits the story well once you know what ‘drowning in a glass of water’ indicates.

❌ Not sure if this is linked to the title, but there are many scenes with Cara gulping water or asking for water. I failed to understand the deeper significance of this, if any. 🤔

✔ The OwnVoices representation of the Dominican Republic and of the undocumented immigrant experience in the USA. Cara’s replies are peppered with Spanish words, increasing the authenticity.

❌ No translation or glossary for the Spanish. You have to wing your way through it on the audio.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 6 hrs 17 min, is narrated by Rossmery Almonte and Kimberly M. Wetherell. I had initially assumed that the two narrators would be for the two parties of the interview, but as I said, the story is mainly Cara’s. The second narrator is used for the interludes and the few non-Cara scenes.

Both the narrators are great at their roles, even though Wetherell has only a minimal presence.That said, the audiobook truly shines bright because of Almonte. A Dominican-American actress, Almonte doesn’t just narrate but brings Cara to life. The broken English, the accent, the emotions, the pitch, the changing moods, the vulnerability and the strength – she depicts everything perfectly with her voice!

The audiobook also has sound effects such as of crowd sounds, footsteps and water being gulped. I am absolutely sure reading the book wouldn’t have offered me the same experience. This is a novel meant for audio.

Overall, the novelty of the presentation is both a plus and a minus for this book. Even with such brilliant narrators, I had difficulty keeping my focus throughout Cara’s meandering answers. It felt like a jaded strategy after a couple of sessions.

Regardless, the audiobook helped me navigate through the book’s structural shortcomings. The narrators and the production values were outstanding. Not a surprise as this is by Macmillan Audio; they are the best when it comes to sound effects in audiobooks.

Recommended, but strictly in audio format. If you aren’t an audio reader, perhaps try staggering the book over twelve days, reading one interview session per day. That might help (I hope!) with the repetitiveness.

Hitting the midway rating mark for the book as my feedback is fairly balanced between the ✔s and ❌s. However, the audio production gets 5 stars.