10 days to go! If you are interested in prelearning vocabulary, I noticed that the SpanishDict.com website has some vocab lists for the book. There quite a few came up when I looked - this was one of the larger sets with just over 100 words.
One advantage of this site is that the words link into the existing dictionary - so unlike an Anki deck you don’t need to worry about errors in the cards.
Oh, thank you! This is awesome! I bet I could make Anki cards with Yomitan with this too…
Week 1! Enjoy reading! Let me know how you get on with the pace. This week is shorter than the upcoming weeks, we could always slow down the pace if needed.
Time to mine some cards!
Week 1 Thoughts: This feels easy to read so far as an e-book. I’m also listening along to the audiobook as I read. I like how it’s laid out the setting and characters so far. The second chapter ended on such a sad note, with Esperanza’s father’s death. I’m curious to see where the story goes from here.
Week 1
I am really enjoying the book so far. This is a good Spanish level for me. I am learning plenty of new words, particularly “agricultural” vocabulary 
(and the embroidery vocabulary I am about to get to looking up), but at the same time I can read and follow the story without stopping. I have 2 bookmarks in the book - one where I have read to and the other where I have vocabulary notes to.
This is a link to the Wikipedia page for Aguascalientes. I was curious to know where in Mexico this was set, and I was very interested to learn about the climate -I think of Mexico as a hot dry place since it is south of the United States, but the average temperatures in this area are in the 50’s to 70’s with good rainfall, which explains why it was a good area for growing grapes.
It will be interesting to think about how this book compares to a book written originally in Spanish since this one was translated into Spanish from English I think. I feel like some things I am reading, I can feel the English peeking through. I will try to come up with some more specific examples.
Week 2 Thoughts: This continues to be pretty easy to read, aside from occasional objects and adjectives that are I have to look up. I didn’t expect the ranch to burn down! How dramatic. I wonder what their life in the US will be like? Probably not very nice, unfortunately. I’m enjoying reading this so far.
Thanks for your week 2 comments. You might be a bit ahead of schedule there but hopefully that’s a good sign from a difficulty perspective!
I found the grammar was easy enough week 1 but looked up quite a few vocab words, especially those related to vines and handicrafts!
I accidentally started a week early and forgot to save this comment as a draft like I did for week 1 
But yes, I’m finding that the plant-related words are requiring lots of lookups for me too!
Alrighty, week 1! I have a quick question about this quote before the book proper begins:
Aquel que hoy se cae, se levantará mañana.
Okay, so before we even begin the book proper. 
This is right before Aguascalientes starts. I understand the general meaning of “fall down today, get back up tomorrow”, so my specific question is: what is “Aquel que” doing in this sentence?
Anyhow, finished week 1’s reading; this looks like it’ll be a good book for me. I ended up having to look up a lot of words (I made 74 flashcards total… 
), but I was able to follow along fairly easily despite that.
I went back and forth for a long time on whether I should add those types of words to my vocabulary pile. I think I ended up just picking the ones I personally thought were interesting. I suppose if they keep popping up I’ll need to add them eventually…
Thank you for the link! Aguascalientes is much farther south than I was imagining; they’re pretty much in the heart of Mexico there.
I know I don’t even go here but I see a grammar question that I can help with and I need to jump in 
Aquel is in the same set of pronouns as este and ese (este = close to the speaker, ese = a bit farther from the speaker / close to the interlocutor, aquel = far away). So this literally means “he who falls down today will get up tomorrow”.
Oh, thank you very much! I appreciate it!
Interesting, so there’s no real personal pronoun here; is “aquel” kind of setting the scene as “metaphorical”, if that makes sense? Like, we’re not speaking about a physical guy here or there, but just someone in general?
Yup, exactly. We’re talking about a potential person that would fall down and then get up.
It wouldn’t be natural said out loud in conversation, it’s more of a literary turn of phrase (similar to “he who falls down”, it’s a bit formal, and who is “he”? we don’t know and we don’t care)
But the general meaning is exactly what you said 
Awesome, thank you!
Here is another link for you to a song by Celia Cruz - La Vida es un Carnival
Celia Cruz, in case you are not familiar with her music, is a famous Cuban singer.
I thought of this song for you because it has plenty of “todo aquel” all whoand “para aquellos” for those who to get the idea of how this is used.
Oooh, thank you! Will definition give it a listen during work today.
Week 2 begins!
No I didn’t expect that either! I also hadn’t anticipated it was going to be so sad - although I probably should have. The uncles are evil - what horrible characters.
I’m enjoying the warmth of the friendship between the family and their (now former) employees. I foresee more sadness to come though!!
Did anyone else notice this about the chapter titles?
I am enjoying now looking for where the fruit or vegetable appears in the chapter!
I completely missed that. Good spot!
