The Things We Didn't Know
Written by Elba Iris Pérez
Narrated by Marisa Blake
4/5
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About this audiobook
The inaugural winner of Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us contest, Elba Iris Pérez’s lyrical, cross-cultural coming-of-age debut novel explores a young girl’s childhood between 1950s Puerto Rico and a small Massachusetts factory town.
Andrea Rodríguez is nine years old when her mother whisks her and her brother, Pablo, away from Woronoco, the tiny Massachusetts factory town that is the only home they’ve known. With no plan and no money, she leaves them with family in the mountainside villages of Puerto Rico and promises to return.
Months later, when Andrea and Pablo are brought back to Massachusetts, they find their hometown significantly changed. As they navigate the rifts between their family’s values and all-American culture and face the harsh realities of growing up, they must embrace both the triumphs and heartache that mark the journey to adulthood.
A heartfelt, evocative portrait of another side of life in 1950s America, The Things We Didn’t Know establishes Elba Iris Pérez as a sensational new literary voice.
Editor's Note
Torn between two worlds…
Andrea Rodríguez is growing up in 1950s Woronoco, Massachusetts, when her mother, homesick, sneaks Andrea and her little brother back to their native Puerto Rico — and abandons them. When the children’s father eventually retrieves them, Andrea struggles to feel at home while grieving her mother’s absence and resenting her father’s strict ideals. This coming-of-age story about a girl torn between two worlds — but at home in neither — dissects stifling gender expectations, clashing cultures, and the strength of family bonds.
Elba Iris Pérez
Elba Iris Pérez is from Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, spent her early childhood in Woronoco, Massachusetts, taught theatre and history at the University of Puerto Rico in Arecibo, and now lives in Houston. Her debut novel, The Things We Didn’t Know, was an instant USA TODAY bestseller and the inaugural winner of Simon & Schuster’s Books Like Us First Novel Contest. She is also the author of El teatro como bandera, a history of street theater in Puerto Rico.
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