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Playing with Boys
Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez Book Review

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Plot Summary of Playing with Boys
"Alexis is a young Latina from Texas who moved to Los Angeles to be a publicist for Hispanic musical groups. She loses her job when her boss is arrested for drug smuggling. She decides to start her own publicity company by representing her friends, who are also Latinas. Marcella is beautiful, but belligerent. She wants to be a serious actress, but is stuck doing a Baywatch style TV show. Olivia has written a screenplay about watching her father being murdered by a right wing death squad in El Salvador.

Alexis contends with her ex-boyfriend, Daniel, a journalist who covers "gangsta rap". He wages a campaign of increasing harassment and violence against her.

Alexis also falls in love with another one of her clients, Goyo, a Cuban rap star. However, she puts aside her feelings for him and helps him rescue his girlfriend from Cuba."

Susanna Marlowe, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of Playing with Boys
Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book? - upbeat
Time/era of story - 1980's-1999
Romance/Romance Problems Yes
Kind of romance: - spurned lover going for revenge
Life of a profession: - agent (sports/celebrity)
Inside culture (main char) - Hispanic/Spanish
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Outside culture (society) - American Pacific Coast
If story of urban/rural... - Big city life
Job/Profession/Status story Yes
Ethnic/regional/gender life Yes

Main Character
Gender - Female
Profession/status: - actor/actress/producer
Age: - 20's-30's
Ethnicity/Nationality - Hispanic/Latinic
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - quite fatty

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 20's-30's
Profession/status: - journalist
Eccentric/Smart/Dumb: Yes
Eccentric: - obsessed - emotionally unstable
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a moderate amount
How sensitive is this character? - hard edged
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - healthy but a geeky weakling

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 5 ()
United States Yes
The US: - California
City? Yes
City: - Los Angeles
Misc setting - fancy mansion

Style
Person - rotating 1st
Accounts of torture and death? - explicit references to deaths
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - vague references - descript of kissing - touching of anatomy - licking - impregnation/reproduction - descript. of nude males (the big P) - rape/molest (yeech!)
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
Susanna Marlowe  

SCHOLARS:


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