In the following essay, Ilan Stavans ambivalently describes Garcia's The Agüero Sisters as a well-written telenovel, a tangled and melodramatic path of well-written characters capturing, through the flow of their lives, the essence of the Cuban Diaspora. His criticism of the novel, however, is that Garcia utilizes a style too similar to her first novel, Dreaming in Cuban, in structure and plot, which diminishes both works.

Cristina Garcia's second novel, The Aguero Sisters, is a magisterial melodrama. Its plot wends through fraternal rivalries, pregnant daughters at odds with their mothers, unexplained murders, illegitimate children seeking to unravel their obscure origins - a family feud of epic proportion, traversing generations. One could easily confuse it with the latest prime-time telenovela on Univision, save for its lack of orchestral music and commercial interruption. Then, too, there is Garcia's astonishing literary style and dazzling attention to the telling detail...