RaveThe Washington PostThe story, told in Cara’s unfailingly frank, sometimes hilarious, voice, quickly expands like the bellows of an accordion to release chords of friendship, community and, occasionally, lust, amid the financial stresses, discrimination and personal divisions faced by Cara, her family and friends in their rapidly gentrifying Washington Heights neighborhood ... Cara punctuates her anecdotes with clear-eyed observations about contradictions and injustices in the country where she has spent most of her adult life, even as she studies to become a U.S. citizen ... Through Cara’s memorable voice, images of other characters emerge ... Cruz once again offers a fresh glimpse of immigration, womanhood, aspiration and gentrification, but the first-person gaze of the protagonist here takes on a more confessional, stream-of-consciousness tone ... an engaging read, one that invites the reader to look at the world as 56-year-old Cara does, with a mixture of harsh assessment, surprising naivete and, ultimately, a deep current of tenderness. The book also resounds with the sense that Cara loves and believes in herself, despite all she has gone through ... It might seem superficial to call this a feel-good tale, yet Cara is a character to love. This is as much a story about Cara’s interior life and the human connections she makes as it is about her external disenfranchisement as an immigrant woman with limited financial and educational resources. How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water delivers a sense of the enduring worth of relationships, life experiences and determination as currencies in a difficult world.
