How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent

This title makes the book sound like a really good, funny, quirky story, huh? That may be a little off. I only checked this book by Julia Alvarez out of the school library because it was on that gigantoid book list I'm reading from (see sidebar), but it still wasn't the best.
First of all, it confused me for the first half of the book! Maybe that's because I've been too spastic this weekend to pay attention as much as I should have, but it was about 70 pages into the book that I figure the story's being told BACKWARDS. As in starts in the 70's and 80's, ends in the 50's and 60's.
The story starts with these four sisters, Carla, Sandi, Yolanda, and Fifi, and they're all grown up, mid to late twenties, and moved out. They're a Spanish family that emigrated to America, and yes, these Garcia girls HAVE lost their accents at this part of the story. Part 1 of the book is all this, with them grown up, how they're estranged from their father, and it's kind of sad.
Part 2 is the girls from college to back when they first moved to America. We see how America corrupts them, how they do things they shouldn't, dishonor their parents, and this part's also kind of sad to watch these four naive girls get ruined, in a way. I think that's what the author was going for.
Part 3 was my favorite, because I loves stories about childhood back in the 50's and 60's when times were simpler. And that's what this is; we watch Carla, Yolanda, Sandi, and Fifi grow up on the Island before they flee to America. From Sandi's painting lessons to Yolanda and her cousins' toy swappings, this book has a bit of good nostalgia in this part.
Another thing that made the book hard to follow was how the point of view was switched around so much. First we'd be reading from Yolanda's point of view, who is kind of the main narrator of the book, then we'd be in the eyes of the parents, the servant Chucha, or just third-person. And it switches with no warning at all, in the middle of a chapter, so you have to be careful with who you think you're reading from.
Am I confusing you? That's what this book felt like.