The Book of Unknown Americans: List 2

by Cristina Henríquez
After Maribel Rivera sustains a debilitating injury, her family leaves a comfortable life in Mexico to seek treatment in the United States. Maribel develops a close relationship with her new neighbor Mayor, setting in motion a devastating chain of events.

This list covers pages 48–90 in the 2015 Vintage Contemporaries edition.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4, List 5
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. traumatic
    of or relating to a physical injury or wound to the body
    And then, after everything, the district told us what we already knew: Maribel had a traumatic brain injury that was classified as mild, but it was severe enough that she was eligible for special education services.
  2. halting
    proceeding in a fragmentary, hesitant, or ineffective way
    I said, “Why don't you read it out loud?”
    She did, although haltingly. I had to help her with any word longer than four letters.
  3. sustain
    supply with necessities and support
    We cast lines out again and again hoping to reel something in, anything to sustain us, but she never bit.
  4. acclimate
    get used to a certain environment
    When no one came, I went out, determined to explore and acclimate myself to the town.
  5. sheepish
    showing a sense of shame
    In the back, I stared at the fish and the lobsters in their giant glass tank and when the man behind the meat counter asked in Spanish if there was something he could get me—everything was recién matada, fresh, he assured me—I told him no. “Too expensive,” I said, smiling sheepishly.
  6. implore
    beg or request earnestly and urgently
    And sometimes I went to the small church we had found, St. Thomas More Oratory, with its water-stained drop ceiling and its folding chairs in place of pews, and sat alone in the empty sanctuary, reciting the same prayers over and over, imploring God to listen.
  7. impeccable
    without error or flaw
    She looked just as she had the first time I met her: impeccably pulled together, with a face full of makeup, fuchsia lips, chestnut-brown chin-length hair curled at the ends and tucked neatly behind her ears, small gold earrings.
  8. provision
    a store or supply of something
    Celia told me about the provisions we would need for winter—heavy coats and a stack of comforters and something called long underwear that made me laugh when she tried to describe it—and about a place called the Community House where they offered immigrant services if we needed them.
  9. burly
    muscular and heavily built
    She told me that Micho Alvarez, who she claimed always wore his camera around his neck, had a sensitive side, despite the fact that he might look big and burly, and that Benny Quinto, who was close friends with Micho, had studied to be a priest years ago.
  10. chortle
    laugh quietly or with restraint
    “It's the most unnatural shade of red,” Celia said. “Rafael says it looks like she dumped a pot of tomato sauce on her head.” She chortled.
  11. busybody
    a person who meddles in the affairs of others
    “Quisqueya is a busybody, but it’s only because she’s so insecure. She doesn’t know how to connect with people. Don’t let her put you off.”
  12. indignation
    a feeling of righteous anger
    She looked like she didn’t know what to say next, and I felt a mixture of embarrassment and indignation.
  13. benediction
    the act of praying for divine protection
    She put her hand on mine. A benediction. From then, we were friends.
  14. providence
    a manifestation of God's foresightful care for his creatures
    Maybe it was luck that brought me here, or maybe it was providence.
  15. veneer
    coating consisting of a thin layer of wood
    They were only words. I had the sense that I should have been able to unpack them, that there was only a thin veneer separating me from their meaning, and yet the veneer was impenetrable.
  16. impenetrable
    not admitting of passage into or through
    They were only words. I had the sense that I should have been able to unpack them, that there was only a thin veneer separating me from their meaning, and yet the veneer was impenetrable.
  17. mirage
    something illusory and unattainable
    A bus. It wasn’t just a mirage, was it? Was it the same bus that had dropped me off before?
  18. amiss
    not functioning properly
    I gasped and ran to her, lifting her sunglasses off, cupping her face in my hands, studying it for bruises, for anything that might seem amiss.
  19. inevitably
    in such a manner as could not be otherwise
    He watched soccer if it was on, which inevitably led to him talking about Enrique and bragging about the latest goal my brother had scored against Georgetown or the assist he’d had in the big game against Virginia, which was Maryland’s main rival, and how almost every week Enrique’s name was in the paper under the sports stats that were listed for every high school and college within a hundred-mile radius of us.
  20. ogle
    stare or look at, especially with amorous intentions
    I watched as Garrett took a step back and surveyed Maribel from head to toe, nodding in appreciation. She didn’t squirm, didn’t shift, just stood there letting herself be ogled.
  21. reflexive
    without volition or conscious control
    Reflexively, Maribel put her hand over her eyes.
  22. saunter
    walk leisurely and with no apparent aim
    Garrett narrowed his eyes to slits and sauntered toward me, nudging his skateboard along with the toe of his shoe.
  23. skeptical
    marked by or given to doubt
    Maribel nodded, and even though Sra. Rivera looked skeptical, she took Maribel by the wrist, leading her up to their apartment while I stood there in the spitting rain and watched them go.
  24. homily
    a sermon on a moral or religious topic
    One Sunday, while our parents debated the meaning of Father Finnegan’s homily that morning, the doorbell rang.
  25. emphatically
    in a forceful manner; with emphasis
    My dad glared at my mom for a second, then emphatically put his feet up on the coffee table, something that my mom hated.
  26. ravage
    cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly
    They assumed conditions would improve. But the country was so ravaged that their hearts never stopped breaking.
  27. scoff
    laugh at with contempt and derision
    “Ten!” my mom scoffed. “I don’t even own ten pairs of shoes.”
  28. welt
    a raised mark on the skin
    She would get a mosquito bite on her ankle and point out the welt to us, reminiscing about the bites she used to get in Panamá and wondering aloud “what the mosquitoes there looked like now,” as if they were old friends.
  29. melodrama
    a story with characters behaving in an extreme emotional way
    And my dad would sometimes shake his head at her melodrama and other times would just stay quiet, like he’d fallen into the haze of a particular memory himself.
  30. confer
    have a meeting in order to talk something over
    My mom worked herself into a froth all over again, conferring with my tía Gloria on the phone.
  31. convene
    meet formally
    It didn’t take long before everyone in our building was knocking on each other’s doors and convening out on the balcony, standing around stunned and shaking with fear.
  32. tedious
    so lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness
    By evening, everyone’s front doors were open and people were roaming in and out of each other’s units, watching each other’s televisions as if a different set would deliver different news, checking to see if anyone had heard anything new, getting tedious translations.
  33. barren
    providing no shelter or sustenance
    It was snowing when we arrived—Enrique kept complaining that the snow was going to mess up his beloved Adidas sneakers—and everything was so colorless and barren that it looked like the moon.
  34. obligation
    the social force that binds you to a course of action
    I did not think of it so much as a choice as an obligation. It is my obligation to provide a good life for them.
  35. reprimand
    rebuke formally
    I have been reprimanded for leaving an empty cup in the seat arm.
Created on Sat Sep 01 15:24:44 EDT 2018 (updated Thu Sep 06 11:22:18 EDT 2018)

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