This article was written by Daria Melikova of Richard Montgomery high school
Trigger Warning: The book and this review include mentions of abuse, suicide and addiction.
Sabrina and Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine is a beautifully written and incredibly important short story collection centered on Latina characters of indigenous ancestry. A national book award finalist, Sabrina and Corina explores many meaningful topics ranging from family, friendship, tradition and ancestry to grief, loss and abandonment. Each of the eleven stories, though tied together with the others by theme and location, are distinctive and entirely enticing in their own ways.
Set in Denver, Colorado, the stories in Sabrina and Corina are about reality; they are about real, normal people suffering from the daily struggles of life as well as the deeper problems within society. Aside from their own, personal or familial struggles, the characters in these stories also suffer on a daily basis from racism, poverty, addiction, sexism and emotional and physical abuse. Unlike in many other novels, the issues faced by the characters in these stories are either never resolved, or resolved in unsatisfactory ways. For me, it was almost refreshing to see this and helped in forming much better connections with the characters as the utter realism of their lives made them so much more relatable.
“Sabrina and Corina,” perhaps one of the saddest stories in this collection, follows Corina Cordova, as she recovers from the death of her cousin and friend, Sabrina Cordova, yet another family member seized by the horrors of domestic violence. The story takes us through Corina’s memories of her friendship with Sabrina as well as Sabrina’s past bad relationships that led to her tragic death. “Sabrina and Corina” can, in a way, reflect the heart of the collection of stories as it is the most poignantly direct display of the loss and suffering faced by the women in these stories, which is why the collection is fittingly named after this particular one.
“As we drove home, I glanced at her worn-out face resting against the window and I felt something unknowable about Sabrina, some sadness at her core that moved between us like a sickness. Where did it come from? Or had it always been there, growing inside of her, filling her lungs with its liquid weight. “Sabrina,” I whispered, tapping her shoulder, but she was already asleep, and for the first time in my life, I missed someone sitting right beside me.” -Corina Cordova, “Sabrina and Corina” from Sabrina and Corina (Kali Fajardo-Anstine)
“Sisters” is another story addressing the violence and abuse faced by a myriad of women but hidden by society. The story follows Doty and her sister Tina, who have been working as receptionists in order to afford to live together in their own apartment after leaving their hometown as teenagers. Tina has been hoping to marry her boyfriend to find an easier life, and attempts to set her sister up with a man as well. Doty, however, takes no enjoyment in dating this man, Joey, or any of the other men she’s been set up with, feeling uncomfortable with them as well as unwilling to marry. Rather than entertaining Joey, Doty is instead hung up on and worried about the disappearance of Lucia, a Filipino girl from town. The final outcome for Doty is tragic, frustrating, and infuriating. However, this is exactly what I love about Fajardo-Antsine’s stories; they get you so invested in the lives of the characters and really make you think about the faults of society.
“But Doty felt white men treated her as something less than a full woman, a type of exotic object to display in their homes like a dead animal.” -“Sisters” from Sabrina and Corina (Kali Fajardo-Anstine)
“Remedies” tackles so many different struggles of life, from the anguish in abandonment and neglect to the hardships in trying to provide for those you love. The story revolves around Clarisa and her half-brother Harrison, who were both abandoned by their father. While Clarisa has a caring mom, Harrison was left with an absent mother, consumed by alcohol and drug addiction. As a result, Clarisa’s mother has taken on responsibility not only for her own child, but also her ex’s other child. However, this only brings more hardship and frustration to her and her daughter’s lives, in the form of a consistent battle with lice. After struggling to better the situation for so long and hearing the constant criticism from her own mother, Grandma Estella, Clarisa’s mom must decide whether or not to make a difficult and heartbreaking decision. The characters and events in this story were just so touching that everything about it really stood out to me.
“Grandma Estella used to bathe me there when I was younger, working my knees and elbow with a washcloth and Ivory soap. Once, I asked her why she needed to scrub so hard it hurt. ‘Because we are not dirty people,’ she had said. Later, when I asked Mama about it, she told me when Grandma Estella was a little girl, her own teachers called her a dirty Mexican and it never left her, the shame of dirt.” -Clarisa, “Remedies” from Sabrina and Corina (Kali Fajardo-Anstine)
It’s incredibly clear that the characters in these stories, as well as in the other eight stories, have been dealt a bad hand. However, rather than feeling pessimistic or overwhelmingly disheartening, the collection of stories was somehow able to feel quite hopeful. The majority of the stories revolve around working-class women that, even through their hardships, are able to be courageous, determined and empowering. Often, rather than focusing on the possible bleakness of the characters’ future, the stories capture single moments in which the characters are able to find solace in their connections with friends or family or comfort in finding those who understand and relate to their ever-persistent struggles. Fajardo-Anstine is able to show that even if everything will not always be resolved, life can still have joy, hope and beauty, even if it comes from the smallest things.
While the stories I mentioned earlier were some of my favorites to read, every single one of these short stories had something special and entirely unique about them. Short story collections are quite new to me; however, I can confidently say that I really enjoyed this format for Sabrina and Corina. It felt like such a smooth read that was never dragging, as each story was so enticing that I couldn’t put it down until I had finished.
Furthermore, there’s always a risk with short stories that they will lose out on something. However, Fajardo-Anstine was able to perfectly maintain depth, fullness, and uniqueness in every single story. In fact, she is able to bring readers so extraordinarily close to the characters that we can completely empathize with their desires, fears and conflicts. We can see the beauty as well as the hardships in their families, their histories, their friendships and relationships. Everything is just so deeply intimate and so exquisitely written that every page brings something new.
Not a single detail was lacking in this wonderful read. The characters are incredibly raw and relatable; the issues they faced are important to discuss and the writing is astonishingly powerful and stunning. While the ancestry of the characters doesn’t come across very strongly, it is, in reality, so interwoven into their daily lives that it is a part of their personalities, relationships and issues. Heritage in these stories is completely natural as it isn’t something that Fajardo-Anstine explicitly mentions, being addressed in a pretty different way. Rather than a head on approach, she chooses to instead demonstrate how even in the simplest moments of daily life, heritage can play a subtle yet tremendous role as it is not something that is separate from the characters and their lives.
Overall, Sabrina and Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine provides readers with so much. Not only is it magnificently written in a way that evokes a spectrum of emotions in the audience, but it also uses its artistic beauty to tackle countless issues of utmost importance. Written by a diverse author, with diverse characters, it’s a collection of stories that brings something new and meaningful to anyone who reads it.
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