A review by serendipitysbooks
Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera

emotional informative reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 Cross Stitch opens with Mila learning of the death of Citali. Along with Dalia they’d been friends since middle school, volunteered for an adult literacy programme as teens, and later taken an eventful trip to Europe together. But, as so often happens, the three drifted apart as they got older. Much of the book is Mila’s memories of their friendship, the struggles as well as the good times. The focus is very much on their teens and early twenties. Coming-of-age is a key theme, and experiences such as sexual assault and disordered eating are traversed. It also explores loss, grief and regret as Mila questions whether Citali’s death was an accident or suicide, and if she could have done more to help her friend when she was showing signs of struggling.The book is also very much a love letter to reading and especially to embroidery, an interest the three of them shared. The novel is told via vignettes with facts about embroidery, including its history, and the portrayal of needlework in literature interspersed throughout. I appreciated the way this novel spotlighted embroidery, an art often undervalued because it is strongly associated with women. I also appreciated that the connections between the factual interludes and the fictional narrative were never explicitly stated; that the author trusted her readers to do that work themselves. While this book includes some difficult topics I found it to be a smooth, easy and enjoyable reading experience. 
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