ENG1141
Creative Writing
Formal Critique
Reviewer’s Name: Maina Malak
Title of Piece: Pendeja, You Ain’t Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature
Author’s Name: Myriam Gurba
Plot:
Gurba’s is criticizing a book called “Dirt” by Cummins. She goes on talking how the book is not a true presentation of the Mexican culture and what they go through every day.
Point of View:
The author was trying to express her disliking of Cummins’s book and the misrepresentation of the Mexican culture in the book. The author kept her position and stood up her ground by exposing inconsistencies in the book about the Mexican culture as the book shows it to be in an ignorant and unfair way. Gurba then talks about how Cummins is not qualified to write about Mexico in the first place because she is barely familiar with culture and that there are more qualified Mexican writers to do the job out there.
Voice & Style:
Gurba used very expressive words to describe her feelings and personal opinion about the book. An example can be “Pendeja, please”.
Character:
Gurba’s character along with her grandfather’s character can be described in her own words as “cocky”. I loved their personality of being honest and brave to speak up and defend the Mexican culture for what it really is
Questions for Gubra:
Do you think your critique of the book had reached Cummins the author, and was it your intention from the beginning?
How do you feel about writing about your own experience in the Mexican culture?
Based off of what you said in the Plot, I agree with what you said because Cummins mainly went based off of stereotypes to write her book and though stereotypes do not define a Mexican culture.
Going off of the way you explained the point of view and voice & style, I agree because it’s true. The way she was expressive in her wording allowed us to see the reasoning behind the anger of “American Dirt’ by Cummins. I really like how you worded your first question as well, it makes the reader question was she intending on Cummins to explain why she felt the need to write this book further than “giving a face to faceless brown people” or were her intentions were to anger more Latin people, specifically Mexicans, about the book and Cummins claiming to be apart of the Latinx community.
Marina, I enjoyed reading your response. I too enjoyed how the author built the plot around her criticism of American Dirt. I found it interesting how she ties all her dialogue back to the book in order to dismiss the ignorant claims that the books author makes. She is constantly referring back to these statements in order to demonstrate the lack of knowledge the author has about her people. The plot helps the reader understand why the author is always referring back to the book.
Hello Marina,
I liked the delivery of your message about Gurba’s work. It is short and percise. I agree when you said that you woud describe her and her grandfather’s character as “cocky” if we draw conclusions about the way she presented herself.
Hello Marina, I enjoyed reading your critique on Gurba’s work. I agree with what you said under “character”, because her grandfather and her were pretty similar in being bold, however I really liked Gurba’s personality as she blunt, strong and won’t take anyone’s bs and she was ready to defend her culture and people.