I was out of borrowed books and vacation books and I-need-a-treat books so I cruised the library's newest acquisitions. This is the first of five new books I took out. Given my affinity towards books set in foreign places, as well as my affinity towards Latin American topics, it was surprising to me that this is first book I can remember reading that is set in Cuba.
The book follows the lives of two best friend-cousins, Nora and Alicia. Growing up, Nora is quiet and compliant, while Alicia is beautiful and wild. During the Batista reign in Cuba, the girls live a charmed, upper-middle class life. However, when Castro comes to power, Alicia's father is accused of being anti-Communist, just one of the many things that convince Nora's parents to emigrate to the United States. Nora adjusts (with a few hiccups) into life as a Cuban-American. Through her correspondence with Alicia over the years, we can see how different her life would have been if she hadn't left.
I was really struck by how bad things got in Cuba and how quickly they got bad. I suppose I had always throught of Cuba as run by Castro, who we are not supposed to like, but otherwise sunny and full of good cigars. This book really taught me a lot more about the history and about how poor the living conditions became when he took power through current times. Some of the descriptions of people waiting it out and in denial when he first took over, as well as the seemingly random violence towards citizens reminded me of Hitler's rise to power. The book also opened my eyes to Cuban-American sentiment about returning to Cuba with Castro in power; many Cubans don't see it as their country as long as he is in power.
The writing in the book was not as good as the story or the descriptions of Cubans. It switched haphazardly between a poetic and a matter-of-fact style, sometimes within the same chapter. It also was structurally confusing in a few places when significant amounts of time had elapsed without the reader knowing.
Overall, I enjoyed the process of learning more about pre-Castro Cuba, Communist Cuba, and Cuban-American attitudes towards Cuba. The friendship between the girls was touching and I did want to know how the book would end (although I had a hunch that was right). However, I was not sold on the book as a whole because the writing just wasn't good enough to support the contents.
The book follows the lives of two best friend-cousins, Nora and Alicia. Growing up, Nora is quiet and compliant, while Alicia is beautiful and wild. During the Batista reign in Cuba, the girls live a charmed, upper-middle class life. However, when Castro comes to power, Alicia's father is accused of being anti-Communist, just one of the many things that convince Nora's parents to emigrate to the United States. Nora adjusts (with a few hiccups) into life as a Cuban-American. Through her correspondence with Alicia over the years, we can see how different her life would have been if she hadn't left.
I was really struck by how bad things got in Cuba and how quickly they got bad. I suppose I had always throught of Cuba as run by Castro, who we are not supposed to like, but otherwise sunny and full of good cigars. This book really taught me a lot more about the history and about how poor the living conditions became when he took power through current times. Some of the descriptions of people waiting it out and in denial when he first took over, as well as the seemingly random violence towards citizens reminded me of Hitler's rise to power. The book also opened my eyes to Cuban-American sentiment about returning to Cuba with Castro in power; many Cubans don't see it as their country as long as he is in power.
The writing in the book was not as good as the story or the descriptions of Cubans. It switched haphazardly between a poetic and a matter-of-fact style, sometimes within the same chapter. It also was structurally confusing in a few places when significant amounts of time had elapsed without the reader knowing.
Overall, I enjoyed the process of learning more about pre-Castro Cuba, Communist Cuba, and Cuban-American attitudes towards Cuba. The friendship between the girls was touching and I did want to know how the book would end (although I had a hunch that was right). However, I was not sold on the book as a whole because the writing just wasn't good enough to support the contents.
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