The New York Times Book Review has praised Alvarez's fiction as "powerful...beautifully captures the experience of the new immigrant's doorway where a memory is not yet the past and the future is still a dream."

These same qualities characterize her poetry--from the "Making Up the Past" poems, which explore a life of exile as lived by a young girl, to "The Joe Poems," a series of beautifully sensual and funny love poems that celebrate a middle-aged romance. The collection culminates in the poem of the title: the twenty-one-part epic about the poet's return to her native Dominican Republic, and to the internal affirmation of the conflict and the last one that the trip caused. Innovation and bold invention, the interaction of sound, the senses, and the rhythm of two languages, all characterize Julia Alvarez's art in transforming precious memory into unforgettable poetry

La revisi n del New York Times Book Review ha elogiado la ficci n de Alvarez como "poderosa...captura maravillosamente la experiencia del umbral del nuevo inmigrante donde no est todav a una memoria el pasado y el futuro sigue siendo un sue o."

Estas mismas calidades caracterizan su poes a-desde sus poemas en "Making Up the Past," los cuales exploran una vida del exilio, seg n vivido por una muchacha joven, hasta los poemas de "The Joe Poems," una serie de poemas maravillosamente sensuales y divertidos acerca de la celebraci n del amor a la mediana edad. La colecci n culmina en el poema del t tulo: una pica colecci n de veinti n partes sobre el regreso de la poeta a su Rep blica Dominicana nativa y a la afirmaci n interna del conflicto ocasionado por su ltimo viaje. La innovaci n y la invenci n, la interacci n del sonido, el sentido, y el ritmo de dos idiomas, todas caracterizan el arte de Julia lvarez al transformar memoria preciosa en poes a inolvidable.

The Other Side/El Otro Lado - heftet, Engelsk, 1996