Review of How to Not Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz

*How to Not Drown in a Glass of Water* by Angie Cruz (2022). Published by Flatiron Books.

Last year, I landed a remote internship at the Smithsonian, which is where I began to cultivate a sense of a work ethic and how to keep myself in the zone.

I was working other jobs at the same time as doing this, and I also ended up having to figure out how to do 8-hour days in my tiny childhood bedroom.

That said, one of the things I learned to do that keeps my focused during my tasks is listen to audiobooks.

Now, as I work on and finish my master’s thesis for graduate school, I’ve continued this habit as it keeps me in the writing and editing work flow.

I picked How to Not Down in a Glass of Water as my next audiobook read because of how I’d been reading that Angie Cruz temporarily went to the same undergraduate school as me.

According to Wikipedia, she had been to the Fashion Institute of Technology, but didn’t get a degree there, and I found that so interesting.

So I found the book on my library’s Libby, and realized it was immediately available. Over the course of four days, I managed to finish this one, as I was also doing a lot of driving back and forth between my home and my graduate school’s campus.

Let’s get into the review!

One woman’s story of finding herself (and a career) after the Great Recession.

This is a story that’s told through unconventional means. Although it’s written in the first person, our protagonist is actually attending sessions with a job counselor, leading the narrative to present itself through transcripts and explanations of what’s happening in these sessions.

Cara is 56, and expected to spend the rest of her life working at a factory that produces little lamps. When the Great Recessions happens, she’s laid off from her job, and she’s forced to find out ways to start over despite her older age at the time. In order to do this, she meets with a job counselor through a program for seniors trying to find jobs.

We learn through these sessions and her first person thoughts that Cara is a first generation immigrant, as she came from the Dominican Republic in order to provide a better life for her son. The first sentence of the book also explains that she thought her husband was going to kill her, also contributing to her decision.

Her new unemployment is also coming with some challenges: she no longer has health insurance, she needed a surgery, which will put her in debt because of the lack of said health insurance, and the city is rapidly gentrifying.

She lives in a rent stabilized apartment, but because the surrounding neighborhood is gentrifying, it’s pricing her out in so many other ways than just rent. At the same time, she doesn’t really have a relationship with her son anymore, contributing to more feelings and resentment about her life.

What interests me most about this novel is about how it uses this unconventional structure: as it’s told through the lens of these sessions with the counselor, it’s basically just Cara ranting abut her life and what’s happening with very little interaction back. It’s a stream of her thoughts directly thrown at us.

But it works really well in the context of this novel, as Cruz manages to make these streams witty and humorous. Cara’s personality shines through in each section, which can be very difficult considering the difficult subjects this novel takes on, especially as it personifies through this one woman.

Overall Thoughts

I enjoyed this novel! I didn’t come into it with any expectations really, and was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked the main character and the novel’s presentation. On a physical book it might look a little different, but with the audiobook I was not confused with the formatting at all.

I have been reading a lot of narratives about immigrants in New York City lately, and it’s definitely one of my favorite kinds of subjects to read about. The history of the city is something I just find to be so fascinating.

That said, this is a novel I really recommend if you’re even vaguely interested in it. Go check it out if you have not already. It’s not perfect, but I enjoyed it.

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