Critical Praise

"This is no paint-by-numbers allegory. Garcia's characters are three-dimensional and her novel is filled with rich and compelling detail. "

———San Francisco Chronicle

"The conventions of magic realism can either amplify the story and give it resonance or fragment the narrative, draining it of clarity. Garcia's beautifully written second novel...seems to embody both extremes....Her prose is lush and rhythmic, so that the novel has an almost feverish air. "

———Booklist

"A bold and very richly detailed portrait...Fluid, graceful, and extremely rewarding: a work of high seriousness and rich detail. "

———Kirkus Reviews

"Cristina Garcia neatly sidesteps the curse of the much-feted first novel...with the assured The Agüero Sisters, a vibrant tale of a repressed Manhattan cosmetics saleswomen and her sexy, Havana-based sister that blends family, culture, and Garcia's shapely prose into a rich, velvety world one is loath to leave. "

———Elle

"Five years after her debut, the former journalist has made good on her early promise with a superb second novel, The Agüero Sisters....With sensual prose and a plot that captures the angst of the Cuban diaspora...Garcia seductively draws us in and refuses to let go. "

———Newsweek

"In 1992, Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban announced the presence of a new star in the American literary firmament.... Garcia's remarkable second novel, The Agüero Sisters, is even better, a deeper, more profound plunge into the mysteries of loyalty, love and identity (national, familial and otherwise)....Cristina Garcia again proves herself a gifted chronicler of exile's promise and peril. "

———Newsday

"An extraordinary new novel does justice to the Cuba of history as well as the Cuba of imagination....Garcia has crafted a beautifully rounded work of art, as warm and wry and sensuous as the island she so clearly loves. "

———Time