Alvarez’s book originally meant to cover the celebration rituals of a specific 15-year-old Latina. Soon, however, the author found herself remembering her own adolescent experience and looking at how the coming-of-age experience fits into American culture in general. The result is a detailed blend of social science and memoir. While the book focuses on one specific quinceanera—from the dreaming and planning stages of her celebration to the actual event—Alvarez also interviews many other 15-year-old girls, as well as investigates historical precedents for the celebration, its religious aspects, and its cultural offshoots, such as quinceanera entrepreneurs. As Alvarez shifts topics, Daphne Rubin-Vega helps provide much needed continuity. Rubin-Vega easily shifts between English and Spanish, slips in and out of quotes and anecdotes, and smoothly narrates the research and cultural commentary. S.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

In Once Upon a Quinceanera, a fascinating, exhaustively researched book about the celebration of a girl's coming of age, bestselling novelist Julia Alvarez, author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent and In the Time of the Butterflies, studies the ancient ritual that unites the U.S. Latino community and is rapidly evolving and spreading across ethnic lines…
—The Washington Post

This is not just a book for Latinas. Once Upon a Quinceañera is for all of us...especially for those of us raising daughters in America today. (Maria Hinosa, Senior Correspondent for NOW/PBS, author of Raising Raul and Crews)

A journey into experiencing a vital, exuberant ritual of modern Latino life...As an author, Alvarez is a terrific tour guide.

Though [Alvarez] brings a critical eye to long-held myths...each page is a love song to the cultural ties that bind generations of women from a diverse group of countries.

A thorough, thoughtful, and important book. . . .Bravo, Julia Alvarez. (Mary Pipher, author of The Middle of Everywhere and Reviving Ophelia)

Fascinating, exhaustively researched.

With grace and humanity, Alvarez explores the fascinating evolution of the quinceañera tradition in the United States, responding provocatively to a tradition that charms her and simultaneously clashes with feminist sensibilities. (Cristina Garcia, author of Dreaming in Cuban and A Handbook to Luck)

Alvarez's honest grappling with her caught-between-twocultures experience is compelling.

Across Latin America, families celebrate girls' 15th birthdays with elaborate, culturally loaded parties. With burgeoning Latino communities, the quinceañera-or quince (the term describes both the teenager and her fiesta)-has emigrated to the United States. Acclaimed novelist and essayist Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents) traveled from Queens to Miami to San Antonio, attending parties and meeting teenagers, their families, representatives of the growing quince service industry-photographers, seamstresses, and party planners-and researchers and activists interested in the condition of today's young Latinas. With high levels of poverty and relatively low expectations for career and financial success, the outlook for Latina teens can be as grim as their quinces are hopeful, resplendent with poufy dresses, extravagant cakes, and symbolic last dolls. Alvarez contemplates the tensions inherent in the ritual: a celebration of young women as princesses, informed by patriarchal worldviews; a bank-busting bash for financially insecure families; a traditional ritual drawing from disparate cultures and influenced by supersized, web-based U.S. lifeways. Alvarez considers her own rocky coming-of-age and the deeply mixed messages of the contemporary quinceañera but cannot deny the joy of the 15 year olds themselves as they relish their once-in-a-lifetime fiestas. This thoughtful study is recommended for public libraries.
—Janet Ingraham Dwyer

Bestselling Alvarez (Saving the World, 2006, etc.) uses the phenomenon of Sweet 15 parties for Latina girls to explore issues of . . . herself. Originally, the quincea-era was a party thrown to celebrate a girl's passage into marriageable womanhood when she turned 15, which is-or was until recently-the legal age of consent for females in much of Latin America. The parties are lavish affairs, with the dresses tending toward puffy and the ambience tending toward princessy. The specifics are extremely malleable, however, with traditions from Cuba and the Dominican Republic thrown into the Latin American mix. Like any marketable cultural phenomenon, the celebrations have been seized upon by the party industry; gown makers and planners stand ready to help parents spend thousands of dollars they don't have, while conventions and a trade magazine advise the professionals. Alvarez inserts herself into a number of quincea-eras (which she then melds into one for dramatic purposes), trying to figure out why the phenomenon has taken off in America in recent years and what it says about the Latin American experience. Unfortunately, the girls themselves are hardly illuminating: "It's like part of my culture" is a typical quote. Alvarez is no help either, using the topic of quincea-eras primarily as a creaky springboard to launch into windy, maudlin ruminations on growing up as a Dominican immigrant in Queens. With such a narcissistic narrator, it's no surprise the girls were less than forthcoming. Might appeal to those who enjoy MTV's My Super Sweet 16. Agent: Susan Bergholz/Susan Bergholz Literary Services

Praise for Once Upon a Quinceanera

“Phenomenal...indispensable. Alvarez’s novelistic eye makes Once Upon a Quinceañera an intimate, intoxicating read.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“A journey into experiencing a vital, exuberant ritual of modern Latino life...As an author, Alvarez is a terrific tour guide.”—The Seattle Times
 
“[Alvarez] brings a critical eye to long-held myths...Each page is a love song to the cultural ties that bind generations of women from a diverse group of countries.”—Chicago Sun-Times
 
“Fascinating, exhaustively researched.”—The Washington Post
 
“Alvarez’s honest grappling with her caught-between-two-cultures experience is compelling.”—Entertainment Weekly