August 25, 2019
Dear Reader/Reviewer:
I want to introduce my novel, A Woman Like Me, a 157,000 word, gritty and dark âwarriorâs journey,â crime thriller. This novel is inspired by the life of a female police officer who is currently on death row for several murders.
This is the story of a one-of-a-kind, disconcerting protagonist, a transgender, and biracial woman, who is isolated, lonely, and emotionally troubled, a stranger in her own body. She is the character that you will peep between your finders when she does something shocking. You wonât look away because you want to know where this will end. Her crimes of violence are initially life-preserving, and later become opportunistic as she fights the obstacles that fuel her fear of returning to childhood misery.
August 25, 2019
Dear Reader/Reviewer:
I want to introduce my novel, A Woman Like Me, a 157,000 word, gritty and dark âwarriorâs journey,â crime thriller. This novel is inspired by the life of a female police officer who is currently on death row for several murders.
This is the story of a one-of-a-kind, disconcerting protagonist, a transgender, and biracial woman, who is isolated, lonely, and emotionally troubled, a stranger in her own body. She is the character that you will peep between your finders when she does something shocking. You wonât look away because you want to know where this will end. Her crimes of violence are initially life-preserving, and later become opportunistic as she fights the obstacles that fuel her fear of returning to childhood misery.
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You are never as different as you feel
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Prologue
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I know now this is the last chance Iâll have to tell my story. This isnât the whole story, but itâs the only real account youâll probably hear.  I need to tell it now because I think my waiting is almost through.
You know Iâve lived so many lives that Iâm not even sure now if this oneâs my real life, but I know itâs my last.  And because Iâve lived so many lives, I know one thing for a fact; thereâs freedom in not caring. When you donât care, you can do anything you want. Anything, because you donât care about the consequences.
 I know I never cared about the price of freedom before. Just yesterday, I was planning to head straight to Mexico before they found me. But I think now I changed my mind. Iâm too weary to start over again in another strange place, listening to another foreign language I donât understand and knowing that one day when Iâm not expecting it someone will spot me.  Besides, where do you run to when you run away from a place thatâs heaven compared to so many other places in the world?
Now Iâm just lonely and worn-out, sitting here and waiting.  The memories are unwavering; they cling to me demanding attention, in an endless loop.  I awoke as soon as the light started streaming in this morning. I sit on my bed and stare out of the dirty window in my tiny rented room downtown.  Yesterday I sat here all day.  I didnât realize I did until I saw that the sky turned dark.  If I pass through this day again, Iâll finish another bottle, and go back to sleep to wait for another tomorrow. Somebody will show up for me eventually or Iâll take the easy way out and shut down those memories forever.
 Maybe once youâve heard how it all happened, you might even see it from my point of view; but I shouldnât kid myself; you probably wonât. I am sure though, that youâll most likely agree with me on this; Iâm really no different from anybody else locked away doing time. The blue uniform and the badge let me collect a paycheck and whatever other advantage I could grab. In exchange, I kept my mouth shut and my eyes turned away just like I was told.
 Actually, you could say that I just continued down the path Iâd already begun in another place far away, when I was someone else. Who you really are doesnât change, no matter what you look like on the outside.  So, in the end, I realize you wonât feel much sympathy for me once I finish telling you how it all happened.  Really, you shouldnât, because Iâm sure Iâd do it all again if I could start over.
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Chapter One
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When I was a little boy and we lived on the outskirts of the slums near Manila, my mother used to point her finger at certain people to single them out. âYou see him?â  Sheâd demand glaring down at me and shaking me with her free hand to get my attention.
I would follow her thin brown index finger pointing to a drunk who had passed out in his own vomit or one of the prostitutes with blackened eyes and a ripped dress, carrying her scuffed up stilettos in one hand and staggering under the weight of her abused body. âThey were born bad.â She assured me with a shrug of worldly wisdom. âEven if they werenât poor, they would live like that.  Donât ever feel sorry for any of them.â Â
She would spit over her shoulder in their general direction as she dragged me and my sister Florencia, down the alley, toward the dump to see what we could find to sell. We went regularly then, when she didnât have enough customers to pay rent. The dump was really a large cesspool, a dumping ground for the citiesâ garbage and broken, unwanted items.  We collected mostly plastic bottles, pieces of cardboard and sometimes scraps of metal that we fished out from the stinking garbage.
On good days, we sold what we found to an old man, who was missing all but his two bottom teeth and one of his ears. Â He separated out the better finds and bagged them up in large trash bags. Â He dragged around a large wire cage mounted on bicycle wheels that he used to transport the bags to another man who sold them to a recycling plant.
He was different from the other scavengers at the dump, who were left to sell whatever wasnât stolen from them by force at the end of the day.  The other scavengers and thieves avoided him as if by non-communicated understanding. People said he recovered ten times more than what he paid us for our trash, because he had witnessed the man who ran the recycling plant, murder somebody high up, who worked for the government.  My mother said that he would be getting his hush money for years to come.
Those kinds of opportunities were few and far between. Â Everybody envied him. Â If he hadnât had that stroke of luck, heâd be picking up trash just like everyone else that scavenged in the dump. Â The only one luckier, was an old woman, in her late sixties, who trudged around with him in a manâs dirty work shirt and beat-up work boots when the days werenât particularly steamy, which were about the only times she could walk bent over with her crippling arthritis.
 Rumor was that she had some kind of âinside connection with the local charities,â and was able to get her hands on the used clothes that were donated to the children in the orphanage.  She sold them in the street as secondhand rags.  I heard my mother talking sometimes about all the corruption.  As best as I could understand, it was just the way the world operated and at least I understood the reason things were the way they were. Even then, I tried to take advantage of what I could learn in a situation and not ask anyone for anything. As far back as I can remember the rule was; if you wanted something you had to get it any way you could.
My mother taught me two important things in those years; she said often and loudly, âYouâll never meet anybody whom you canât speak badly about.â This is something I took to heart and followed through the years. The only problem was I didnât speak badly about them soon enough.
 She also taught us by example, how to wait around endlessly, just watching the people you knew, waiting for somebody to slip up or let their guard down so you could rush in and grab something you needed.
 Although most of our waiting was in long lines for some charity hand-out, being able to wait for an opportunity to take advantage of someone is a straight up skill for survival and not just a requirement for living when youâre poor. If I stop and think about it, it always worked out that way for me.
Even at that age, I decided that what my mother said about people âjust being born that way,â must be true, because my sister, Florencia, who was younger and the ugly oneâŚthey all said so, was quiet and never caused any trouble. She hardly ever said anything and never complained even when we were hungry. She was that way as far back as I could remember, a small ugly brown baby lying in her basket, watching and waiting. She always reminded me of a little field mouse with big ears and small eyes, except she wasnât as cute.
 And me? I complained and talked back all the time, no matter how many times they told me to shut up or smacked me in the face. I kept arguing, insisting on what I wanted, even if it didnât do any good. I didnât just argue and talk back; I struck out and hit or kicked my mother or any adult who tried to bring law and order into my young life. I didnât care if I got the worst beating later.  The point was that Iâd left teeth marks in some adultâs arm. That was satisfaction enough for me.
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This is a thriller unlike one that I have read before. Its unique themes that track through an entire lifetime make the reader intrigued each step of the way. From the beginning, we see how trauma and questionable childhood situations lead to a life full of equally questionable choices and considerable identity issues. What makes this novel even more gripping is that it is based on true events. It is so difficult to imagine having a life as complex and vast as the protagonist's. From one country to another, from one disappointment to another, and from one bad experience to another, the reader is brought along a journey that will shock them. At times, I found myself taking a moment to ponder what I had just read simply because I could not believe what had just happened. It is rare for a book to leave me speechless but this one succeeded.
There are a lot of well-developed characters and plots in this novel. It could have been so easy to lose threads along the way but Rodriquez skillfully writes in a way that is very clear and keeps everything fresh in the reader's mind. Keeping in mind that this takes places over a lifetime, it is highly impressive to have such a clear vision about how each person the protagonist encounters fits into the overall picture.
One of the strengths is the emotional aspects that the readers feel along with the anti-hero. Ultimately, each decision made is a call for a place to belong and a reason to find identity. The readers feel each rejection and disappointment that comes her way. Another strength is the sexual politics and discriminations played out at different stages in the main character's lifetime. It is a real account of how women are treated in life and how much it affects identity.
This is certainly a page turner and I would suggest it for any thriller fans because of its unique themes.