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Suzanne
Rating:
 
Review
There is so much to like about this book, especially the contrasts. There's Constancia, the repressed married sister who fled Cuba for New York and created a successful cosmetics business by preying on women's insecurities about their looks. She's the opposite of Reina, the big, strong, single sister, ultra-confident in her sexuality, who stayed in communist Cuba and forged a simpler life there as an electrician. I really enjoyed hearing their family's story from several points of view – their father, daughters, and son all illuminate different layers of the tale, as each one tells their family's history from a different angle. I don't always like this kind of fractured storytelling, but it works here. Ultimately, after 30 years of being apart, the sisters meet up in Florida's Cuban exile community, and some of their long held beliefs start to unravel. I also enjoyed how Cuba's wildlife constantly made its way into the story via the father's profession as a famous naturalist. It's disconcerting to read about an era when naturalists studied animals by shooting them, though. The juxtaposition of this science with santería, Cuba's voodoo/Catholicism, adds another clever contrast. The writing is simply wonderful – I read this book first in Spanish and then in English, and am happy to report the English translation is just as satisfying.
Best Line:
"My mother puts her faith in electricity and sex." (pg. 144)
Kim
Rating:
Review
Woven into sisters Constancia and Reina Aguero's stories is the history of their father, Ignacio, and his love of nature, endangered animals and the girls' mother, Blanca, before and after he killed her. Beginning in 1990, 48 year-old Reina Aguero is an electrician in Cuba, a self-assured, sexual woman who towers over most of her co-workers at nearly six feet tall. After being injured while on the job, she decides to visit her sister, Constancia, who has recently moved to Miami. Meanwhile, older sister Constancia is beginning her own all-natural cosmetics line of wrinkle-reducers, fat-busters and moisturizers, while trying to decide what to do about her 30 year passionless marriage. Both sisters are deeply haunted by the past, and their dead parents. They have many questions, different versions of childhood events and stories told over the years. Constancia and Reina both have grown children, and their lives and stories show up from time to time. I can't say that any of the characters in this book is happy and carefree, but they aren't sappy, perpetually blue people either. They are all fascinating though. There are many interesting and authentic details in this novel about Cuba, Miami and nature, and plenty of Spanish to keep this gringo entertained, even without the aid of an interpreter. This book also offers one of the best lines I've ever read too.
Best Line:
"Oye, chica, since when did cellulite ever deter passion?"
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