Rating: 
Summary: Gripping, thoughtful, evocative
Review: After pulling the reader instantly into its other-world-next-door setting, Bodega Dreams becomes a quick, harrowing ride through a dangerous, enlightening period in the life of a very engaging narrator. As other reviewers have noted, the setting lives and breathes as much as the story's compelling characters, but the most wonderful element of this book is the "what if. . . " storytelling. With swift pacing and surprises at every turn, it moves like a thriller, but the beautiful, unpretentious writing urges you to put on the brakes just to enjoy the passages over and over again. People who dismiss this work as being to Gatsbyesque are making shallow assumptions -- F Scott Fitzgerald would have treasured this book. Earnest Quinonez has a spectacular future. His hard-earned life experience shines with every word.
Rating: 
Summary: my third attempt
Review: ................. The writer is clearly capable of terrific evocative writing, his Spanish Harlem is right on the mark, but the plot and dialogue are at times downright embarrassing and cliche ridden. I would have preferred a book with no plot or talking at all.
Rating:
Summary: BODEGA DREAMS, A EXCELLENT FIRST NOVEL FOR QUINONEZ
Review: As an avid reader I'm always on the quest for new books. After reading an excerpt of Bodega Dreams I was hooked. The language was great, it is a language I often speak myself, Spanglish. Growing up in a not so nice neighborhood in Long Island, NY I found the book comforting becuase it hit close to home. I loved the characters, especially Sapo. The story is one that goes on in all walks of life, deceit. I hope that Ernesto Quinonez finds the inspiration to write a second book to let his readers know if Blanca & Chino stay together. Until then I will spread the word of his first great novel and wait for a second.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Train Book
Review: This book was a great read for my Downtown train rides. The story kept me intrigued and NEEDING to read on ... sometimes almost missing my stop. I really enjoyed this book ... but I was left wanting to know more ... It would be great to see what's to happen with these characters in 5-10 years. YES that's how involved and real readers can get with these characters!
Rating: 
Summary: Daimond in the Rough
Review: Ernesto Quinonez' debut novel, Bodega Dreams, breaks through stereotypes, and enlightens the reader to the numerous human elements that make up El Barrio. Nevertheless, his purpose is not to explain the socio-economic group dynamic that makes up contempoary East Harlem. His purpose is to tell a good story. Unfortunately, I was expecting more of the former. As an Anglo who works in a Hispanic community, I thought the book would give me more insight into how Nuyoricans view themselves within New York's Latin American Community. For instance, the reality of inter-Hispanic relations is more complex than the author lets on. Although the subject is broached (inside the precinct house), Quinonez leaves it at it's barely scratched surface. Although these expectations were not satisfied, my curiosity as a reader of a good novel was. Quinonez' hero, Chico, doesn't take a holier than thou attitude toward the seedier characters he meets, but accepts them for who they are: hoods, drug dealers, mafiosos, and the lowlife attorney, Navarro. The descriptions of El Barrio are first rate. The reader gets an insider's view of Quinonez' home turf: the sights, sounds and smells that make up his neighborhood. What the author fails to do is explain why Chino's love, Blanca, a devout Pentecostal, falls in love with him and gets married at such a young age, despite his continued association with the local drug pusher, Sapo. Perhaps the courtship was edited out of the original manuscript. And although Chino seems to be a decent, inteligent fellow, how these two became married while full time college students is never satisfactorily answered. The plot was interesting, pitting the black and white concepts of right and wrong against the myriad grays that represent the realities of survival and prosperity in El Barrio. The characters of Chino and Sapo were well developed, but the lesser characters were one-sided. The social conscience of Willie Bodega, the Puerto Rican Social Activist turned drug dealer, was quite unbelievable. The dialogue was interesting, and often humorous, but oftentimes highly predictable. However, the climax was somewhat surprising, and did catch me off guard. All told, I found this to be excellent debut novel, and look forward to Quinonez' next book.
Rating:
Summary: Latin Pride
Review: I enjoyed the book very much as a fan of "The Great Gatsby." Quinonez is a great addition to our Latino literary culture along with Piri Thomas and Junot Diaz. However, I also recommend another Ecuadorian writer, Emanuel Xavier, probably overlooked because he is a gay writer. These are the proud voices of our culture which would make a great ceviche.
Rating: 
Summary: I wanted to like it better...
Review: I was really looking forward to reading something different, something authentic and real, and all of the buzz suggested this was it. But aside from the really wonderful descriptions of the neighborhood and ways people live, the book was a let down. The dialouge was corny and the plot was derivative. But I can't argue that the author has talent, I just hope he puts it to better use next time....
Rating:
Summary: First you Dream It
Review: I just finished one of the best and most important books I have read in years, Ernesto Quinones' Bodega Dreams. Bodega Dreams is an entire universe, vividly written. Quinones has a great ear for voices. The characters are more real, with their dialogues, than some of the people you spoke to today. This is one of those rare books that is funny, sad, inspiring, and alive, a book which rings in places like a bell, rings with the absolute, humming truth that makes a classic. The real fix, the real hit in reading is when you see your own experience of the world reflected, when you nod your head in agreement, laugh with recognition. A great book can be confirmation that you exist, that your world is important. Nothing is more crippling to the soul than erasure, and a great book about the world you recognize is the opposite of erasure. That's why reading Bodega Dreams is POWERFUL. I'm an americana, but I work in a barrio, and all day long I listen to the voices and stories that come out of it. The voices are beautiful, sad, funny, interesting, alive and so damn VALUABLE. The lives of my clients, which make up the life of the barrio, are full of injustice, and and courage. My clients speak with a language (Spanglish or nuevorican) of their own. The barrio is a huge slice of the America I know, of the life that I live (at least vicariously). The disorientation I sometimes feel when I leave my particular barrio and enter the mainstream media world - a world which erases and denies the barrio and it's language - is unsettling. Sometimes it makes me very angry, as though someone had suddenly slapped the people I talk to all day and told them to shut up. As though they'd been gagged (or maybe I should say gagged again, because it often seems to me that their dealings with the mainstream are an endless series of gaggings, interruptions, and disrespect). Well, Ernesto Quinones's book rips the gag off. One of the key characters in Bodega dreams is a former political activist, William Irizarry aka Willie Bodega. After the activism of the seventies failed, and after some personal betrayals, Willie Bodega became a junkie, and then got clean and became the East Harlem version of a mafia don. Except Bodega is a don with a difference. His dream is to spend dirty money renovating, building, educating - empowering, in fact - the people of the ghetto. The protaginist, Julio, has to negotiate between his love for his evangelica wife, who needless to say, is a real straight arrow, and his loyalty to, and growing involvement with, Willie Bodega. There are also fascinating subplots, character sketches worthy of Dickens, and colored glimpses of puerto rican city life. Trust me, on the most superficial level, Bodega Dreams is a fast ride and great reading, even if you haven't the slightest interest in Spanish Harlem or la cultura puerto riquena. But on other levels the book is revolutionary. This is a DANGEROUS book - as George Orwell's books and Charles Dicken's books were dangerous - because it speaks for and to people who have been silenced. Ernesto Quinones, thank you. You are my hero, my Willie Bodega.
Rating:
Summary: A Let Down
Review: After reading the reviews in the NY Times, online, and elsewhere, Bodega Dreams sounded as if it would be an exceptional read. It was not. To say the least, it falls far short of the hype. To compare it to Gatsby is like comparing the NY Yankees to the Toledo Mudhens. Quinones shows skill as a writer only when he is describing Spanish Harlem. His passages about nicknames and his description of a Pentecostal Church are especially on the mark. But the rest of the book simply sags. The plot is flimsy, the writing sometimes sounds amateurish (who edited this?), and the ending is almost laughable (although it is intended to be anything but). Ernesto, I think you've got talent, but stick to what you know, and stay away from the sensational.
Rating:
Summary: Bodega Dreams come true
Review: Bodega Dreams is a shiny penny in the middle of nothingness. Vivid characters and fresh dialogue. Ernesto Quinonez has succeeded in accomplishing a novel that spills out sad and beautiful truths without worrying about who its spilled on. This book is reminiscent of authors such as Piri Thomas, Junot Diaz and Abraham Rodriguez Jr. but Mr. Quinonez is still able to carve his own niche into the land of Latino Literature.
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