This Is How You Lose Her is a book of stories written by Junot Díaz and united by the main character, a young man called Yunior. The stories are about Yunior’s multiple love affairs, which reveal various sides of his character and show his development as a personality in different ages and circumstances. From his teenage years to the young adulthood, he evolves from a sexually immature young boy into an unbridled womanizer and, finally, starts to treat women as human beings, not merely as an object of sexual attraction.
The author starts with stories about Yunior’s latest passions and finishes with descriptions of earlier ones, for the reader to see the young man’s evolution backward. The last story, called “Miss Lora,” describes one of Yunior’s first love affairs. It is necessary to consider the circumstances in which the young man had found himself before he started his relationship with Miss Lora.
Firstly, the events described in the story take place right after the main character’s brother’s death of cancer. Yunior is in grief because of it. To reveal his emotional state at that time, it is possible to note that “almost every night you had nightmares… in your dreams the bombs were always going off” (Díaz, “Miss Lora” 251). This quote shows how the boy was affected by the loss. Secondly, his relationship with his current girlfriend, Paloma, becomes problematic as she does not want to have sex with Yunior, explaining it in a way that the boy finds hard to understand (Díaz, “Miss Lora” 252). Paloma’s strange behavior makes Yunior’s mood even worse.
Finally, the protagonist constantly reminds himself of the unbridled sexual habits of his father and brother (Díaz, “Miss Lora” 270). The former used to take the small Yunior to the places of his sexual affairs while the latter never felt shy when having sex with girls on the bed next to the one his younger brother was sleeping in. Yunior hopes that he will not become this kind.
Thus, being depressed, having problems with his girlfriend, and afraid of his supposedly sleeping inner womanizer, the boy comes across Miss Lora, a middle-aged woman with a peculiar appearance and sexually attractiveness. For Yunior, she is both a mature sexual partner and a kind of escape from the cruel reality and heavy thoughts. As he visits her every night, she can be called a habit, used for relaxation. On the other hand, she gives Yunior not only physiological but also emotional relief (Díaz, “Miss Lora” 276). With her, he can easily express his thoughts and emotions, connected with his late brother. Because of her openness, readiness to help, and maturity, Yunior gets emotionally addicted to the woman. One more reason for this addiction is the teenager’s lack of sexual experience.
In the short stories, describing his later life, we see Yunior as a womanizer, who considers every girl around an object of mere lust. It is worth taking a look at the story, called “Alma,” as it is the one that gave the book its name. The phrase, used as the book’s title, is the ending to the story. Although it is the shortest story in the collection, it tells the reader a lot about Yunior’s attitude to women in the period when he, supposedly, due to his age, takes after his father and brother.
In the story about his relationship with Alma, a college girl, most attention is paid to her attractive appearance, the way she dresses, and her behavior in bed. It is especially emphasized that she is “more adventurous in bed than any girl you’ve had” (Díaz, “Alma” 78). The narrator compares her with a gracious horse and admits that he wants to bite a piece of her flesh (Díaz, “Alma” 75). This means that Yunior takes her merely as an object of lust. Furthermore, his interest in her is a desire of a male animal to have a female partner. She attracts him sexually, and sex is all that he needs.
The story ends in a partly expected way. When Alma, all of a sudden, finds out that Yunior has been cheating her, she decides to leave him. His reaction to this is quite cynical. On the one hand, he was careless enough to let his journal get into her hands so that she finds out about the young man’s love affair with another girl. On the other hand, Yunior does not find the situation surprising. He explains that “this is part of my novel” (Díaz, “Alma” 79). It means that, for him, relations with girls are a kind of game. In other words, it is possible that Yunis considers himself a director, making a film where all his girlfriends are minor characters, connecting one scene with the next.
Finally, it is worth considering the first short story in the collection, “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars,” as it is full of romantic sadness and reveals Yunior’s character traits which are opposite to those, described in “Alma.” On the one hand, the young man continues cheating and treating girls cynically. On the other hand, now, this kind of behavior takes place due to the emotional inertia. When his next-in-turn girlfriend, Magda, discovers Yunior’s cheating, she does not give him up, but gradually grows cold to him (Díaz, “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars” 9). He decides to take her away on holiday, hoping to fix their relationship. In spite of all his effort, Magda grows indifferent and, finally, leaves him.
In this story, contrary to all the next ones, Yunior is represented as “weak, full of mistakes, but basically good” (Díaz, “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars” 3). He is exposed to sentimentality, which, step by step, comes up against his habit of cynical cheating and lack of sexual self-restraint. For example, when Magda, while on holiday, expresses her gloomy thoughts, Yunior wants to shout at her, but, due to his love for her, forces himself to keep calm and find out what is wrong (Díaz, “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars” 19). It means that the girl’s feelings are not indifferent to him anymore, and he wants to save their relationship.
Further on, on the last day of their holiday, when Yunior strives to find the fled Magda, he understands that their love is over, and how stupid he was to cheat the girl (Díaz, “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars” 43). One may suppose that, after this experience, Yunior will, with much probability, change his behavior, become more abstemious, and treat women as human beings, who deserve respect and care.
In conclusion, one can say that Yunior is a young man whose character grows mature gradually from story to story. In his teenage relations with Miss Lora, he shows himself as immature and wanting emotional protect. When he gets older and has multiple love affairs, he treats women merely as objects of lust. Finally, having experienced love and strong affection, he grows sympathetic and develops a respectful attitude to the opposite sex.
Works Cited
Díaz, Junot. “Alma.” This Is How You Lose Her. Riverhead Books, 2012, pp. 75-81.
“Miss Lora.” This Is How You Lose Her. Riverhead Books, 2012, pp. 248-290.
“The Sun, the Moon, the Stars.” This Is How You Lose Her. Riverhead Books, 2012, pp. 3-44.