Books, letters, email, and words play an important role in Yunior’s relationships. In youth, he bonds with girls over comic books. Many of his girlfriends are bookish, and many are teachers, including Flaca, Magda and Miss Lora. Notably, all of Yunior’s cheating is revealed by one mode of text or another. Magda receives a letter from Cassandra. Alma reads about his time with Laxmi in his journal. His fiancé read his emails and finds out about his fifty lovers over a six-year span. Additionally, the letters between Ramon and his wife are a key feature that symbolizes the uncertainty of the future and an unyielding connection with the past.

Yunior tends to take his girlfriends to the Dominican Republic after he cheats on them:

Over a tortured six-month period you will fly to the DR, to Mexico, to New Zealand. You will walk the beach where they filmed The Piano, something she’s always wanted to do, and now, in penitent desperation, you give it to her. She is immensely sad on that beach and she walks up and down the shinning sand alone, bare feet in the freezing water, and when you try to hug her she says, Don’t.