I. Overview
 In the Prologue, readers learn that Yo is advertising for the new novel that she has written.  Even though Yo claims, "But it's fiction based on your own experience-like all fiction," her family members do not understand her need to write about her life (9).  According to her family, she exposes them by using  siblings and parents as the basis for her works.   The Garcia family refuses to speak to Yo, except Fifi.  The mother threatens to sue Yo for publishing lies about their family.  Yet, all of this hostility begins to change when Sandi gives birth to her son.  While in the hospital, Fifi convinces her to call Yo only to get her answering machine.  The Garcia family is willing to make an effort to include Yo in their lives.  In the next sections, Yo's mother and cousin give readers insight into Yo's life and personality, but most importantly her interest in writing as a young child.
II. Analysis
 As we have seen in Islas, Hijuelos, and Garcia, memory is important for in the Latino imagination  What characters perceive as good or bad  in their childhood directly affects what they become in their adult life.  This is evident in when Fifi and Sandi are discussing the fact that their mother is suing Yo for publishing their family secrets, "Mama's just pulling her usual.  Remember when she used to pull us in the car as kings and drive over to the Carmelite nuns and say she was going to leave us in the convent unless we'd promise to behave? Remember? We'd be kneeling by the car and all these Carmelite nuns, who weren't supposed to show their faces, were at the windows wondering what the hell we were doing?" (4).  Both of the sisters remember when the mother used to make them go to the convent, but their mother does not remember things this way.  Their mother does not remember taking her children to the convert instead she says, "Remember the time she ran away to the Carmelite convent and told them she was an orphan?" (12).  Fifi is upset and shocked because she remembers it differently, " You're the one who used to drive us over there, Mami, don't you remember?" (12).  Fifi looks to her mother to reassure her that her memory is correct.  After this conversation, Fifi begins to question her memory and ponders the thought that maybe she made it up.  Yo, on the other hand, never doubts her recollection or her role as a writer, which is the reason she is the outcast of the family.

 Yo's curiosity about writing is evident in her involvement with the literary magazine while in high school at Miss Wood's. At Sacred Heart, Yo falls in love with the heartbreaker Roe, who attends the nearby boy's preparatory school.  But Yo's cousin, Lucinda, is love with his as well.  Yo's manipulative nature is evident when she supposedly accidentally leaves her journal out that describes her cousin's affair with Roe.  Of course, Yo's mother finds the journal and Lucinda is sent back to the Dominican Republic, never to experience an education at an American college.  Thirty years later, when Yo visits the island, there is tension between her and Lucinda. Lucinda wonders if Yo is, "the haunted on who ended up living your life mostly on paper" ( 53).
Questions
 1. How would you characterize family relations in this text?
 2. What is the difference between "story-truth" and "reality"?