BOOK REVIEW: Dreams of Significant Girls by Cristina Garcia

I received Dreams of Significant Girls by Cristina Garcia as part of an ARC tour from Good Golly Miss Holly.  This was the first ARC tour I ever participated in, and it was a really fun experience!


Unfortunately, the book itself was not quite so pleasant.  In fact, Dreams of Significant Girls is the first book that I'm reviewing on this blog that I did not finish reading.  After starting and stopping the book close to five times, I finally gave up on reading it about less than 100 pages in.


It seemed as though Garcia was trying too hard to create a unique voice for each of the three girls by separating each of their stories into separate sections.  I did not like this setup as it became very redundant when each character retold the same event from her own point of view.  This is why I prefer books with one narrator; it is an easy way to avoid such redundancy and it keeps the book moving at a better pace.


In addition, I felt like Garcia gave me no reason to care about her characters.  The reasons she gave for the girls spending time at the summer camp seemed weak, and even in the part of the book I read, I had a hard time coming up with reasons for the events that took place except for the fact that something has to happen in a book.


Though I only had a week to read this book (as part of the rules for the ARC tour), I am sure that even if I'd had years and years to read Dreams of Significant Girls, I would not have finished it.  Garcia may have been trying to imitate The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, but that series was written much, much better.


Dreams of Significant Girls will be released on July 12, 2011- although I really would not recommend reading it.  If you are looking for a coming-of-age type story, there are many better ones out there.