Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

I'm starting this review with a rant. If Latino authors want me to appreciate their talents in writing, they need to use appositives to balance their use of Spanish words and phrases. I'm not going to stop every little whipstitch to look up their words in a Spanish language dictionary. Not going to happen. So if they wish to convey full meaning to me, they shoulduse appositives or translations immediately after your Spanish words. It is the author's job to make the writing clear, and much was lost to me the reader in this book. End of rant.

This book is so slow anyway...basically character driven, strewn with problems presented by illegal aliens, not a topic I'm fond of, but I will try to focus mainly on the main plot. Vermont retired professor Antonio has recently lost her husband Sam; her life after Sam's death is the afterlife she is referring to plus whatever "life" he is "living" now. She has the emotional support of her three sisters, but they come with their own problems. She is bothered by the illegal next door trying to dump his problems on her. He expects her to provide a bus ticket for his illegal girlfriend...gasp, and she does!

One of the sisters gets lost, disappears, whatever to a birthday party for Antonio held at another sister's house in Chicago. The drama picks up with the search for Izzy, who has demonstrated bizarre problems of late and is "off her meds." The "action" is all very passive. Overall, I would call it dull.

This was a much anticipated novel by this author but it doesn't measure up to the hype.