Second Person: Díaz vs Moore

When I first opened up "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie" by Juno Díaz, it instantly brought me back to the last collection of stories that we read from Lorrie Moore. I was instantly excited because I really enjoyed the second person stories that Moore wrote. A major part of Self-Help was the stories written in second person and how they related back to the theme of the book being a "self help" book. I couldn't help but compare they two stories when I was reading the story last night.

I would first like to mention the title. The title starting with "How to .." was the first connection that I made to the stories in Moore's Self-Help. When I first read this I was expecting more of a tutorial, but I was surprised at how similar it was to Moore's style of writing. Both authors do a good job of bring you as a reader along for the ride through the actions of the main character. I struggled to connect to the narrator in this story, but I feel that it was because the actions we centered around a male's perspective while Moore's were centered around a female's perspective.

I have to admit that I felt as though Díaz was covering to many topics at once in this story. With Moore's stories, I felt as though I could follow the story with a bit more ease; and because of that, I could read it as more of a story without acknowledging the advice side of the story which comes with it being a "how to" story. With Díaz though, I felt as though he kept jumping back and forth between the type of girl that he was talking about. As I was reading the story, I wished that he separated the girls up. I thought that they each had the potential to be there own individual story. While I didn't find this totally appealing, I do think that it added to the feeling of it being a "how to" story.

I think that both authors did the second person story very well. Even though I think I do prefer Moore's second person stories, I can appreciate what Díaz did with the story and how he was able to capture what in my eyes was a more accurate depiction of a "how to" story.