Structure

Daisy Hernández's memoir A Cup of Water Under My Bed is divided into three parts and 10 chapters, plus a prologue and epilogue. She tells her story in a roughly linear fashion, beginning with her early childhood and ending when she is in her late 20s and decides to leave the East Coast and her job at the New York Times to move to San Francisco. To an extent, the individual chapters can be read as autonomous essays, but reading the memoir straight through chronologically allows for a greater understanding of how the author changed and grew over time and how events from the past continue to affect her later in life.

In particular, the reader gains a sense of how Hernández's relationships with her family have evolved and endured despite considerable tension and conflict. A rift develops between herself and her parents and aunts when...