Structure

The author divides her memoir into two books of roughly equal length. Book 1, titled “Mi Mamá Me Ama,” which translates to my mama loves me, is set in Mexico and covers the early childhood of Reyna and her siblings over the course of 22 chapters of roughly equal length. It opens in 1980, when Reyna is four years old and focuses on the relationship between Reyna and her mother. It explores the traumatic experience of the various phases of neglect and abandonment that she went through as her mother left, returned, left again, and returned again, and so forth. Each time, Reyna hopes to improve relations and each time, she is hurt yet again.

Book 2, titled “The Man Behind the Glass,” which is a reference to the framed photograph of her father that Reyna grows up looking at, not knowing him in the flesh, is set in Los Angeles...