$1.99 Kindle sale, July 17, 2019. This is a moving dual timeline historical novel set in Cuba, both in modern times and during the 1958-59 period of F$1.99 Kindle sale, July 17, 2019. This is a moving dual timeline historical novel set in Cuba, both in modern times and during the 1958-59 period of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, with a couple of romantic subplots to spice things up.
[image] Havana, Cuba (the author specifically mentions how many old cars and vehicles are still on the streets - most Cubans can't replace them with newer cars so they take loving care of them)
[image] El Malecón
Cuba's past is seen through the eyes of Elisa in 1958-59, a young woman from a wealthy upper class family who starts a secret romance with a revolutionary who fights against the corrupt regime of Fulgencio Batista, alongside Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. In the modern timeline, we have Elisa's Cuban-American granddaughter Marisol, a journalist of "light" topics who hugely misses her recently deceased grandmother.
The story begins with Elisa and her family leaving Cuba after Castro has taken control, then jumps back about a year to show how things got to that point. Her chapters alternate with Marisol's, who takes a first-time trip to Cuba to scatter her grandmother Elisa’s ashes in the country she grew up in and loved, the place she always longed to return to. Marisol stays with the family of Ana, her grandmother’s best friend, unearths long-hidden secrets, and finds her own romance that is fraught with difficulties due to the political turmoil.
Next Year in Havana is well-written and VERY well researched, thought not quite as engaging for me as I’d hoped. I think that's because the story is told through the viewpoints of two women who are on the periphery of the action. That, together with the focus on their romances, gives this book somewhat less heft than I expected. Still, it's a great way to absorb some of the history of the Cuban Revolution, along with a deeply felt and sometimes heart-wrenching story about love: both romantic love and love for one's country.
I also thought Chanel Cleeton, a Cuban American author, did an excellent job of showing the problems, shortcomings, hopes and desires of all of the different factions that play a role in the story. While she's coming, very understandably, from an anti-Castro position, she shows the injustice of the Batista government and the idealistic desires that many of the revolutionaries had. She also acknowledges the limitations in viewpoint of the Cubans who immigrated to America, a nuance that impressed me.
[image] Havana slum
Next Year in Havana is a 2018 “Reese’s Book Club” selection. Many thanks to Berkley Publishing for the review copy!
Content notes: some sexual content (view spoiler)[including an out-of-wedlock pregnancy (hide spoiler)] but nothing at all explicit. Limited violence, also not graphic....more
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