When So Far From God was published in 1993, it was heralded as the newest masterpiece from one of the most elegant voices in the Chicana movement. Julia Alvarez and Sandra Cisneros both favorably reviewed the book as true to the Chicana experience and brilliantly funny. The novel revolves around the life of Sofi, a wife, a mother, and a Chicana who discovers what it means to be a woman. Through the deterioration of her marriage, the deaths of her daughters, and the awakening of her social activism, Castillo produces an image of a Mexican-American woman who endures all and comes out stronger than ever before. Castillo mixes religion, supernatural occurrences, sex, laughter, and heartbreak in a novel unlike anything previously seen in American Literature. So Far From God is a funny novel than does not have a happy ending; a novel dominated by tragedy, yet full of the victory of the human spirit; a novel that is highly entertain while still thought provoking. Castillo wants to expose the joys and realities of contemporary Mexican-American life on the edge of American culture. Castillo said, in an interview with Simon Romero, that she wanted to use humor in her fiction because the themes she explores are so dense, that without the humor, her point would get lost. She wanted her novel to challenge the status quo in terms of expectations of women, religion, language, and medicine.