Carolina Novo

well, I guess that this year my type of book is stories about religion, what's built around it - the communities, the rules, the secrets, the downfalls and the salvations -, and about how people are impacted by it. in the author's biography it says “Adopted by Pentecostal parents she was raised to be a missionary. This did and didn't work out” - and I think it's always a bit like this in life, isn't it? It works and it doesn't.

After “Crossroads”, this one is probably my 2022's favourite book.

There's so many good things about this book — the precise, wonderful way it is written, the character development, the narrative arch, the language, and how Spanish and English blend together through it. But, finishing it, I was left with such an overwhelming warm and longing feeling, and that's what I recall best right now. It's one of those stories which is so humane that it just hugs you, makes you cry and laugh, and when it is over, leaves that innocent, almost childish feeling of ‘Oh, I'm gonna miss them'. And it's true — I've fallen deeply for Yolanda, Angel, Amadeo, Connor, and I just wanted to know more and more about them, about Las Penas, the rites of love and salvation and pain in this community of New Mexico. This is why we read, mostly, isn't it?

Demorei um mês exato a ler este livro, e acabei-o no dia 8 de março - o que talvez não signifique nada. Acabei de o ler no dia 8 de março, que é dia da mulher. É também um dia com um significado especial na família, de fim e renascimento. Um dia em que um ano salvámos alguém e noutro perdemos outro alguém. 8 de março. Talvez não signifique nada, mas talvez signifique muito. Porque é impossível olhar para a vida da mesma forma depois de ler este livro. Tem mais de 700 paginas e não tirava uma única; pelo contrário, só queria que continuasse, continuasse, continuasse. Foi demasiado cedo para não sabermos mais nada da Tali, da Rosario, do Juan, do Gaspar e do Estebán. Queria que nunca acabasse.

they say to Ona at some point – you should write about your mother, your mother's sisters, your grandmothers. you already have everything you need to write.
they were right, of course. and I'm so glad Elizabeth Acevedo was also told that at some point, and decided to write this beautiful, beautiful novel.

this was one of those books I only discovered after wandering around the bookstore for hours, waiting for something to catch my eye and beg to be taken home. this one shouted at me - with its title, cover, premise - and I’m so glad I listened. Andrea does something absolutely incredible, something I’ve also recognized in other authors like Layla Martinez and Irene Solà: she writes in a way I’ve simply never, ever seen before.

It’s striking how these women manage to write from the gut; more, with their guts - that’s really what it is. they spill their pain, love, rage, disgust, and violence onto the page exactly as they felt and feel it, with no filter or polish, as if they opened up their stomachs and laid everything bare in front of us, without shame or flinching. that’s how we end up with works like this, unlike anything else — in my opinion. they speak to us face-to-face, in the language of our childhoods and teenage years, or of our aunts and grandmothers, our mothers or the old women of the village.

the author doesn't just tell a story - she creates a world so solid, so close to the one we know (yet with its own peculiarities) that it’s impossible to pass through it to the other side, it’s too thick, too dense. the language and form in this book are brilliant too: a mix of the popular people and from the teenagers who live far from everything and slowly learn about the world through "méssejer" and other ways that bring news, bit by bit, to places where nothing moves or changes, not even the wind.

preserving the unique ways of speaking in the Canary Islands isn’t just a valuable and remarkable political or social act of rebelion - it's literary gold. and here, the excellent translation work must be also acknowledged. the collaboration between the Portuguese and Spanish translators resulted, in my opinion, in one of the best translations I’ve ever read. sure, I didn’t read the original, and I know nothing about translation, but I know that I never once felt like I was reading one (which often happens to me), and at a certain point, I honestly forgot I wasn’t reading Andrea Abreu’s exact, original, words.

the author has been compared to Ferrante, and I get why - it's especially obvious in the friendship-competition-desire dynamic between the female protagonists (Isora and the narrator here, Lila and Elena in Ferrante). I have to say - and maybe this is just a personal thing - that this kind of dynamic isn’t really my favorite thing; in fact, it makes me deeply uncomfortable (which I suppose is partly the point).

maybe it’s because I was once the kind of kid who would “jump off the bridge if she told me to” for my best friend, but I find it hard to relate to the “leaders” of these pairs — Lila and Isora, and their meaningless and casual cruelty. I know the complexity and violence in these relationships is intentional (and masterfully crafted), but it always makes me feel a bit more distant from the characters.

that’s probably one of the only things I “liked less” about the book, although obviously, it’s completely personal and tied to my own feelings, haha. additionally, I just feel like the characters (all of them, really) are so rich that they deserved a bit more development, and that the real ending of the story comes just before the final page. I think it would’ve been stronger if it had ended slightly earlier.

still, I’m giving it five stars — because, once again, I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’m in love with Andrea.