Rating: 
Summary: Kicks butt, from page one
Review: I don't read but this book was an ex. I couldn't put it down. This guy can tell a story. I like all the people in the book. I thought I knew them by the end. That's true story talking. In the end though Willie Bodega didn't really die, like all other heroes he lives in us. I looked for more books by this author but I couldn't find any, so I hope his next one is just as good.
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Summary: "If faced with this decision, what would you choose?"
Review: "Bodega Dreams", By Ernesto Quinonez intertwines two storys; that of Chino, a young man in his early twentys that was born and raised in Spanish Harlem. Learning at an early age that if he wants to survive and make a name for himself he's going to have to fight for it. After he graduates from high school he enrolls in college and trys to make a better life for himself, his wife and unborn child. Money is very tight and Chino constantly struggles to keep the peace and some how balance his childhood sweetheart/new wife Blanca and his friend since third grade, Sapo. Sapo interduces Chino to Willy Bodega and Chino's whole life changes.
The other story in this book is Willy Bodega's. Willy Bodega comes back to Spanish Harlem to re-build it and it's people. Willy Bodega has big dreams and the money to give to people to help those dreams become a reality. Willy Bodega hears about Chino and becomes interested in his potental, wanting to meet with Chino, He has Sapo who already works for him set it up.
This story opens your eyes to a completely diffrent way of life then we are use to, but that is also a way of life for some people. I really enjoyed this book and I encourage other people to read it.
Rating: 
Summary: Bodega Dreams
Review: I thought Bodega Dreams was a good book. It makes you see how things are in East Harlem. It opens your eyes to things most people have never seen. One of the main points in the book is that Bodega (a drug lord) buys property then turns it in to nice apartments so that he can rent them out for cheap to his own people, so that they in turn will help him out. This has been Bodega's long time dream. Hince the name Bodega Dreams. I could go on but i dont want to ruin it for you, but all in all it was a very good book. If you dont like a lot of cursing then i would suggest not readin this book, but if you can look past that then diffently read this one.
Rating:
Summary: Different look at life
Review: This book was easy to understand and fun to read. I do not like to read at all and I couldn't put this book down. All the things that happen in the book could actually happen, nothing too out of this world. The book keeps you interested all the time. An updated Great Gatsby is a good way to put it, but you are able to relate to this book a lot more. How the characters are set up seems to fall right into place with Gatsby. Anyone could read this book, young or old, except for the fact that if you are offended by foul language I would not recommend reading it because it's ALL OVER the book!! Some of the language I could not understand at first, but after reading it became clearer to what they were saying. Also, I learned some things about Harlem that I don't think I would have ever learned anywhere else. The ending was very surprising, but I liked how it wrapped everything up. All around good book and that's coming from someone who does not like to read!!
Rating:
Summary: A teenagers point of view
Review: I really enjoyed this book. For me I liked the fact that it was down-to-earth. The events that took place in the book are very comparable to everyday happenings. The fact that the book was realistic helped keep me interested in it. Although being very realistic the book was not boring. The happenings were practical but at the same time surprising. If you like to read about the Mob and organized crime then this book is for you. It focuses on Harlem and how organized crime and mobsters try to change it around for the better. It is very interesting and is hard to put down. It is also an easy book to read. I would recommend this book to teenagers and young adults. I would also let you know that the cursing in this book is outrageous. So if you don't like cursing I would stay away. Overall the book was great and I hope you enjoy it also.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad.
Review: I liked this book because It tried to sample other works. Just like Eminem samples other bands' music or P. Diddy did as Puff Daddy. What Quinonez did was take that sampling into literature. Don't think that F. Sctot's Gastby didn't come from "Whuthering Hights". Poor boy Hithcliff falls for rich girl Catherine. Catherine marries rich and so Hithcliff runs away to make a fortune. In fact both books start talking about the house they live in and about their "neighbor". All in all I liked the book, because what Quinonez did was a take a dead cow and add a Sapo and Nene and Nazario and made it give more milk.
Rating:
Summary: It rocks,
Review: This book rocks, that's it. It rocks, it works in many levels. But anyway you look at it, the book was great. Not a single boring chapter. Go Bodega man.
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Summary: Bodega Dreams by F Scott Fitzgerald Oops! I mean E. Quinonez
Review: A poor but idealistic young man falls in love with an upwardly mobile lady who dumps him because of his poverty and marries a wealthy man. He vows to amass a fortune to win her back. Years later, now a millionaire because of illegal narcotic smuggling, he reappears to throw lavish parties and win her back. She leaves her husband only to kill a man and her now rich boyfriend agrees to take the blame. And all of this is narrated by a decent young man who slowly comes to realize the true and unrealistic vision of the boyfriend. Does this sound like Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY? Ernesto Quinonez in BODEGA DREAMS updates Gatsby's tale of unreality colliding with harsh reality to serve as the backdrop for Spanish Harlem. Now there is nothing wrong with borrowing plot elements from other and more successful books, but what should stamp the updated version is a sense that the author has enlarged on the themes of the original and staked out new literary territory of its own. Unfortunately, Quinonez does little more than give his characters Hispanic names and verbal tics. Much of his book is full of the phonetic pronunciation of Hispanicized English with frequent obscenities thrown in.
What emerges from BODEGA DREAMS are the same themes that Fitzgerald handled with far more skill in THE GREAT GATSBY. Willie Bodega (Gatsby) has loved Vera (Daisy) for years and plans to win her back by amassing a fortune in crime. Bodega might have been a decent man except for his blind spot of love for Vera that dragged him into a life of crime. Julio (Nick) sees Bodega as a man with a vision that allows him to reshape reality so that the end product will be about as real as his love for her. Bodega associates his vision of a renovated Spanish Harlem with a renovated love for a woman who refuses to be seen only as a two dimensional matrix. If Bodega can only construct a mansion fitting enough for a Spanish king, then surely Vera will see the worth that burns in his soul.
Much of the better parts of Bodega Dreams explores the gap between wish fullfillment and brute reality. Bodega's dreams are infectious. Nearly everyone who knows him is taken in by those dreams and does not mind that crime may be the impetus behind some serious social and romantic re-engineering. But not everyone is taken in by those dreams. The tragedy of any dream is not only that dreams have a bitter habit of being crushed by reality, but rather that not everyone shares that dream. Some, in fact, have competing dreams that force the original dreamer to see that any foundation built only on illusion is no foundation at all. Fitzgerald's Gatsby never got to see that. For that matter, neither did Quinonez's Bodega.
Rating: 
Summary: nothing special
Review: Bodega Dreams isn't a bad book, but it isn't a good one either. It just is, and it doesn't deserve the praise which is heaped on it. The plot has been ripped straight from the Great Gatsby - so directly, that it becomes embarassing. Quinonez' characters seem contrived (e.g. the yin-yang sisters 'Blanca' and 'Negra'). Bodega Dreams is desperate to shock you with poverty - style here is referencing ... syringes. It feels preachy and smarmy.The book never stops to reflect on anything - you just cruise from phone call to fight, never knowing why you're there. Psychological insight is minimal - these are characters yanked around by their author - why they do, what they do, what it does to them, is never fully explained. The major problem is the looming shadow of Jay Gatsby. Willie Bodega IS Gatsby, yet somehow, he is supposed to be different. Somehow. Quinonez' prose is unremarkable, and his dialogue is patronising and irritating. At the end of the book, it is hard to put a finger on what exactly it was about. The final twist undermines everything that preceeded it, and not in a good way. Quinonez does pull some brilliant phrases out of his novel, but I never got the feeling he knew when he was doing it. I got given this book from a friend of mine who is normally very sharp - but this is a slim novel definitely less than the sum of its mostly borrowed parts.
Rating:
Summary: good book
Review: The main character in the story in my book is Chino. How did Chino change, Chino changed alot. Since Chino had meet a friend named Sapo, Sapo was a guy that likes to get into fights with people. So Chino became friends with Sapo So they both like to get into fights and it did not matter if they won or if they lost the fight. But then he had met a girl named Blanco, So he change a lot for her because he liked her and he stop getting into fights and he had stop smoking as much as he did before because after they got out of high school they got married. Early in the book, first Chino did not have a lot of friends and stuff. So he had wanted to be like this kid that likes to get into fights with everybody he could. So they had became good friends they actually became best friends one day. So Chino got his name buy fighting with people. After high school he did not like to get into fights because he was married. Blanco did not even like Sapo so he had change a lot for her. He went to school be something but I forgot what it is. But he was still friends with Sapo. That?s all I got and I thought it was good.
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