La isla bajo el mar

Esta novela esta ambientada en los tiempos de la esclavitud en la isla que actualmente es Haiti. Relata la vida de Zarite, una mulata que es vendida al terrateniente frances Valmorian, trabajando en la casa de este, atendiendo a sus dos esposas y teniendo sus hijos.

La lucha de los esclavos en Haiti es famosa historicamente, ya que constituye uno de los primeros lugares en el mundo donde la esclavitud es prohibida, gracias al exito de la rebeliones constantes de los esclavos contra sus amos. En este ambiente la autora narra la vida de esta esclava, que sufre las agrasiones de su amo.

Sin embargo, Zarite tambien cuenta con la presencia de distintas mujeres, quienes la ayudaran a sobrevivir: Violette que se dedica a la prostitucion, Loula es la mujer que organiza su negocio, Tante Rose es la curandera y Tante Matilde la cocinera de la plantacion. Con ellas, la autora crea un ambiente de amistad frente al horror, la magia femenina llenando los espacios de sus vidas, ayudandola a acercarse a su libertad, manteniendo su dignidad incluso en el peor de los momentos.

Allende logra una narracion entretenida, llena del calor del Caribe, los aromas envolviendo los cuerpos, el pasado volviendose presente y la libertad, tan ansiada, posible, al alcanze de la mano.

Lila

This a story that at first sight seems to be slimple. However, it beautifully deals with deep issues of loneliness, faith, the life during the Depression times, negletfullness, and primarily, love.

It narrates the story of Lila. We find her being the wife of the old preacher in Gilead. We learn throughher thoughts nd experiences, the life she hs had and the one that she is living now.

Being a girl, she is neglected by her family, and the point of being outside in the rain during whole nights. She is taken by a woman, Doll, and starts a life of wandering towns after possible jobs with a group of people. They spend the nights by the fire, and during days bathing in the river. There she thinks about loneliness, 'But if you're just a stranger to everybody onearth, then that's what you are and there's no end to it. You don't know the words to say.'

Lila learns to read during a year that Doll takes a job cleaning at a house. However, feeling always hunted by Doll's past, they move from town to town, their lives fragile, spending their days isolated from the communities they pass around.

Soon Depression comes and the author depicts how difficult their lives become 'How could it be that none of it mattered? It was most of what happened. But if it did matter, how could the world go on the way it did when there were so many people living the same and worse? Poor was nothing, tired and hungry were nothing. But people only trying to get by, and no respect for them at all, even the wind soiling them.'

The author makes us question our beliefs and position towards our lives in this world. Through Lila's memories and reflections, we learn her new days as the wife of a preacher, carrying a child that soon would be her first encounter to the entity of family, her struggle to live a life fully, her past always hunting her dreams.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

The Secret River

This story is a narration of immigration, building your HOME in another place, leaving behind life to travel to the unknown. This is what happens to the Thornills.

William Thornill was born in one of the poorest places in England, seeing himself forced to steal in order to survive. Sal is his neighbour, who is truly his soulmate and who becomes his wife once he finishes his intership as a boatman with Sal's father. The river Thames is his life. However, he gets used to stealing parts of the shipments he has to cross from one side to the other of the river, untill he is discovered and sentenced to death.

Sal truly saves his life as she encourages him to write to the authorities, sending him and his family to the prison island of Australia.

Now starts a new phase in their lives. At the beginning in Sydney, but once William gets a job transporting goods from the residents living in the shores of the river to the main city. Soon, he finds a place he sees as his future home: Thornhill's Point. However, his idyllic idea of how to make the land productive encounters the existence of aboriginal people.


Through the story, Thornhill and his family finds themselves having to choose between two approaches towards the aborigines: peaceful co-existence, as his neighbour Blackwood has achieved; or violence, the aggressive way another neighbour called Smasher chooses.

The 'civilised' convicts, who have become respectable citizents in the new lands, end up behaving quite 'uncivilised', as the author questions who are the savages. When they are angered, accusing the aborigines of stealing the products of their efforts, they use the word 'thieves', treating the aborigines the same way they were treated in London.

This story of colonisation depicts the effects it had in the aboriginal communities, erasing them from their own lands, enslaving them to the colonisers and their customs, being the victims of a mechanical operation to extinguish them completely.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

The Light between Oceans

This is a story in which you find yourself struggling with the consequences of the characters' decisions with them, decisions that have been taken with the heart, impetuously, solitude gnawing their souls, making them desperate.

The narrative begins with Australian Tom Sherbourne, returning home from war. He takes a position in Janus Rock lighthouse, a place full of the sound of the wind and the waves crashing the rocks. Later, he meets charming easy-going smart Isabel, marrying her and taking her to his home.

A presence that might have illuminated the isolated lighthouse, soon becomes the images of grief after several miscarriages. One night, they hear the crying of a baby. At the beginning, they think it is the wind, playing a cruel joke on them. Soon, they discover a baby with a dead man in a boat on the shore. Tom thinks of reporting inmediately. However, Isabel silently requests for him no to do it. They name the child Lucy.

Since that day, Isabel's life is full of noises and love. However, day by day, Tom struggles, his consciousness telling him that somewhere the baby is being missed. Two years later, they travel to mainland and soon discover 'they are not alone in the world'.

This story tells the lives of people who build their own home away from the rest of civilisation. When your dreams are washed away, you could take desperate measures to survive. A story of love and responsibility, of grief and solitude, of mistakes and redemption.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

On Beauty

This novel is Zadie Smith's homage to 'Howards End' by E.M. Forster as it plot loosely parallels Forster's masterpiece, dealing with the issues of class, appearance and, in Smith's narrative, black people's identity.

The story focuses on two very dissimilar families. The Besley family consists of Howard, a liberal university professor, his African-American wife Kiki and their children Jerome, Zora and Levi. The Kipps family is lead by conservative Trinidadian professor Monty, his wife Carlene and their children Victoria and Michael.

Smith cleverly interwines their lives, portraying the clash not only of their ideologies but also of their personal affairs. The conflict between Howard and Monty has being developed for several years, as their different approaches towards art makes they stand in totally opposite positions. During the story, the members of their families become more and more connected, creating bonds that the patriarchs don't agree with: Jerome works as an intern for Monty, having an affair with his daughter Victoria; Kikki and Carlene become friends, not taking into account their different backgrounds and beliefs; Monty's family moves and he starts working in the same university as Howard does, becoming a clearly opposition to what-used-to-be Howard's influential leadership.

As the novel takes place in an imagined upper-class white context, the author places significant issues regarding being black in the development of the novel. For instance, Kikki feels isolated as the black wife of a white professor, saying that '(her) whole life is white. (She doesn't) see any black folk unless they be cleaning.'  Meanwhile, her son Levi resorts to the city to find people he can identified with, changing his way of speaking, copying the street style he feels as the real black talk.

As you can see, this story is complex, intense, intelligent, puzzling, and more! Zadie Smith has created a masterpiece, becoming one of the most promising writers of her generation. Her power of observation fills the novel with a more deep understanding of topics that concerns the citizents of our contemporary world, without disregarding the pleasure you can find in a well-written story.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

The Namesake

This book narrates the story of the Ganduli family, the Indian parents who moved to the United States to have a better life, and their son Gogol/Nikhil. This diasporic tale revolves around the topic of identity, the notion of 'home' and the cultural crash that the protagonists live in a context totally dissimilar to their original one.

The father, Ashore, teaches at university and his wife Ashima spens her days at home, wearing saris and cooking Indian food everyday. When their first son arrives, they follow the tradition by which an elderly member of the family chooses the baby's name. When the letter with 'the good name' gets lost in the mail, they decide to call him'Gogol'. This name marks the boy as unique, different, 'At times his name, an entity shapeless and weightless, manages nevertheless to distress him physically, like the scratchy tag of a shirt he has been forced permanently to wear.'

The parents also feel they do not fit in this new world they have to inhabbit, feeling discomfort even in their own houses as  'For when Ashima and Ashore close their eyes it never fails to unsettle them, that their children sound just like Americans, expertly conversing in a language that still at times confounds them, in accents they are accustomed not to trust.'

The author beautifully portrays the days of the members of this family, struggling to find a place in a new community, the parents keeping their customs and sorrounding themselves with Indians like them; their children trying to figure out their identities in a position of in transit, in a world in which 'home' is buildibg everyday.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

All Our Names

This story appears to be a narrative about a man called Issac, told from two different points of view in two different times, and , however, I think this character is the less known as the book is closed.

The story is divided in two parts. One is named 'Issac' and displays the adventures two young men live in revolutionary times in Uganda. We are never told the name of the narrator: he is called 'the professor', 'Dickens', 'Heaney' and several names as the narrative goes on and his connection with books  is shown.We learn of the Ugandan war for independence, the rebel group to overthrown the government and the role of the university students in it. The narrator blindly trusts Issac, and in a degree, at least at the beginning, he idiolises him. However, his bond with a powerful man changes everything, and their relationship trembles.

The other part is called 'Helen' and narrates the life of a social assistant in the United States, and the affair she has with a young African man named Issac, who has travelled to America as an exchange student, presumably escaping from a dangerous situation in his country. As tines goes by, Helen starts discovering gaps in Issac's story, and his persistent silence to her questions strenghtens the idea that he is hidding facts from his past that he is embarrassed or ashamed of.

The reader easily makes the connection between the 'Issac' in Uganda and the exchange student in America. However, the author masterfully handles the suspense, and not everything is as it appears to be.

Mengestu is one of the most aclaimed contemporary writer in the United States, giving to his sentences a unique density, portraying the complexity of today world as people from different cultures meet, conflict arising from the diversity of our origins.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

The Forgotten Waltz

This is the story of an affair between two married people. However, being Anne Enright the writer behind the narrative, it is away from cliches with deep understanding of the conflict that this kind of situation arises.

It starts enigmatic, full of the cleverness of Enright's sentences 'If it hadnt been for the child then none of this might have happened, but the fact that a child was involved made everything that much harder to forgive.' In this story we not only find the cheater/husband, the wronged wife, the always waiting mistress; we also have their children, giving this situation started by two a more complicated nature than such a trio.

 In the beginning there is the mystery, the escapades, the danger of being caught. Later, the obsession, the hours waiting outside the other's house. In the beginning, the narrator even humorously claims 'all you have to do is sleep with somebody and get caught and you never have to see your in-laws again. Ever. Pfffft! Gone. It's the nearest thing to magic I ever found yet.'

Then, when they are discovered, they have to deal with their relatives' and friends' anger, disappointment, foolishness. The narrator says 'We're pariahs.'

What the narrator havent thought through is the relationship she must engage with her lover's daughter, a teenager full of anguish and predictable issues. Is there when Enright fully makes us understand how our impulses touch not only our lives but also those's surrounding us.


A clever analysis of how mature and responsible adults are suppossed to be. The development of an affair is dissectionated, making plain how humans are lead by their heart, not their brains.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

Vals with Bashir

This is the graphic novel based on the film with the same name, dealing with memory and its ways to deal with traumatic events.

This story starts with a middle-aged man retelling a friend about a dream. In this dream, a group of dogs run through the streets looking for him, knowing they want to kill him. He connects the dogs with his own duty during his twenties as he was a member of the Israeli army.

This situation triggers the question in the protagonist's mind: why does he have all his memories of his time in the army totally erased?

With this issue in his head, he starts a journey to uncover the events that surrounded the massacre in a refuggee camp in Beirut and the role the Israeli army played as they didn't stop the rebels to kill the civilians, among them, women and children.

The colours chosen by the artist and the outline given to the characters emphasise this feeling of urgency; the fragility of the soldiers' souls; the craziness involved in the decisions taken by a few; the consequences the young boys have to face once the battle is over.

I highly recommended graphic novel as it deals with issues that the powerful do the best to hide;  young boys having to face the horror with their own eyes; their lives never the same; never their own again.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

The Hours

This is Michael Cunningham's tribute to Virginia Woolf.

We have the lives of three women connected in a literary way: Virginia Woolf in her retreat away from London; Clarissa  Daloway, an editor preparing a party for her birthday, and, finally, Mrs Brown, a housewife in the 50s living an unsuitable life for herself.

All of then are struggling with her own issues. Virginia is fighting with the fact that she is hearing voices again, writing Mrs Dalloway and trying to make her husband understand that she would die of boredom if she stays in the countryside as the doctors recommend.

Clarissa moves herself through contemporary New York, buying flowers and in a way, reenacting what happens to her according to what Virgina has written in her already classic novel. She visits her dearest friend, ill with AIDS and trying to keep him alive.

Mrs Brown is desperately trying to convince herself that becoming a housewife and mother is what she has desired all her life. Being an invisible bookworn, she couldnt say no to the captsin of the school/medalled veteran asking her to marry him. Now, she feels imprisoned.


Cunningham cleverly interwines their lives, making a path for the reader to discover the secrets they are hidding from themselves in plain sight.

You are going to love the literary reference to Woolf's life and works, and the poetic language the author uses to create beautiful atmospheres that surrounds the characters. You will anguish with the characters' decisions, their hearts full of fear, their minds full of voices.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

The English Patient

This book contains the kind of story that marvels the readers because of its uniqueness: the plot is superb, the language poetic, the characters complex, the scenes dynamic, passion flowing its pages, destiny waiting for those who has challenged their fate.

It starts with the description of Hannah, a nurse taking care of a mysterious man whose skin is so burned that he is described as 'black'. Then, we learn that the story takes place during the Second World war, the Bedouin seeing the planes falling from the sky, the desert engulfing them, this man ( a soldier? A spy? A explorer?) being rescued by the nomads from his plane on fire. Hannah devoutedly, patiently is trying to subdue his pain while struggling with her own losses, an abandoned Italian villa providing an enchanted backgroung for the characters' sorrow.

There are flashbacks? Dreams? Stories? that overcomes the patient's mind, fulfilling his hours as he mutters endlessly.Through them, we get glimpses of the patient's past, a passion that overwhelmed his days, an affair that is both a blessing and a curse and finally, a broken promise.

In the villa, the appearance of Caravaggio, a soldier looking for revenge, gives the reader the possibility to see the cruelty of human nature. Kipp, the Indian bomb expert, makes Hannah realise her need for love in a time of horror, the fragility of life perceived in the lives of these characters.

A heart-breaking story, the images that populated this narrative enrich the readers' experiences, the heat of the desert touching their skins, the wind blowing their hair, their eyes shadowed under the scorching sun.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

Atonement

The cover of this edition shows it truly as what it is: a classic. The story of deception, perspective, imagination, delusion and responsability is one of the best written by McEwan.

It tells the story of a particular day that changes the characters' lives forever. Briony is a twelve-year-old girl whose imagination drives her to create explanations for the things that she doesn't know about or understand. When she sees, through the window, the scene between her eighteen-year-old sister Cecilia and the maid's young son Robbie, you realise how Briony unconsciously sees the tension between them as something dangerous, a puzzle she must solve.

In times of the beginning of the war, in the house there are other visitors: Briony's cousins, the twin boys and their teenaged sister Lola, and a friend of the family, the chocolate manufacturer Paul Marshall. During the night, the boys run away as they fight with their sister and everybody seeks them through the darkness of the garden.

A terrible thing happens, being Briony the only witness. This event changes the flow of the plot completely, moving through time as it portrays an older Briony, now a nurse in the army, trying to atone for the mistake she made that night years ago.

What is to say about Mc Ewan's well-crafted writing, the quick-pace of the plot only slows to give us a glimpse of the characters' complexity, the reasons behind their actions, the decisions they make as History leads their days into chaos.

A surprise is waiting for you if you think you know where the story is going. You soon realise Briony is the best storyteller McEwan could use to tell his splendid story.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

El corazon Helado

Almudena Grandes es una de las mejores escritoras españolas contemporaneas. Gracias a ella, un publico joven se ha acercado a la historia tragica reciente de ese pais, conociendo detalles sobre la Guerra Civil y sus consequencias.

'El Corazon Helado' es un libro lleno de momentos fascinantes, escenas en las que la Historia se hace presente, interpelando a los personajes, demarcando sus destinos, numerando sus dias.

Julio Carrion es un empresario quien tras su muerte no solo deja una fortuna a sus hijos, tambien un pasado turbio y escondido. Por ejemplo, fue miembro de la Division Azul, grupo de soldados que durante el gobierno de el General Franco viajaba en tren, las ventanas tapiadas para frenar las piedras que los habitantes de los pueblos por los que pasaban les tiraban en repudio, hacia el borde ruso, peleando junto a los alemanes contra Stalin. Tampoco hace referencia a su trato con los exiliados españoles en Francia, con quienes cosecho una gran amistad, vaya a saber cual era su proposito.

Cuando su hijo Alvaro acude a un llamado del banco sobre una cuenta de su padre, encuentra a Raquel Fernandez Perea, quien parece haber tenido mas que una relacion profesional con Don Julio. Sin saberlo, comenzara un viaje al pasado de su padre quien, como muchos, se movio como pez en el agua en tiempos de crisis, en momentos en que hombres eran prisioneros en condiciones atroces, niños robados a sus familias, muerte y desamparo.

Raquel tambien tiene un pasado que contar. Su abuelo Ignacio, anarquista, lucho del lado del gobierno de la republica y perdio. Salvo su vida de milagro, escapando cuando los socialistas (algo que yo no sabia) supuestamente pactaron con Franco entregar a los anarquistas ante la inminente rendicion. Su vida en Francia tiene una rutina en la que Raquel cumple un rol principal, niña mimada a quien siempre le recuerdan los gloriosos tiempos de la republica. Asi, ella jurara venganza.

Grandes llena de sentimientos los diferentes momentos. Uno se emociona hasta las lagrimas ante la preciosa descripcion del festejo de los españoles en las calles francesas ante la muerte de Franco, la esperanza en los ojos de todos los presentes,  la ruidosa celebracion llenando la ciudad luz. O la desgracia acahecida sobre aquellos apoyaban la republica y tuvieron que vivir en España, siendo perseguidos, amedentrados, no permitiendoles siquiera pararse ante la timba de sus seres queridos para llorarlos.

Se que los temas que trata esta novela son duros. Sin embargo, la prosa de Grandes lo lleva a uno a querer saber mas, el desproposito de la guerra claro como el agua, el 'corazon helado', de los traidores congelando las vidas de todos aquellos a los que tocan.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

Seating Arrangements

This story happens during a weekend, just three days of a family celebrating the weeding of the eldest. However, the author is able to show in that short period of time the strenghts and weaknesses of the human heart.

With a tragicomedy tone, we meet the issues unearthed by the fact that the whole family Van Meters is together in their beach house. Upper class, wealthy, member of golf clubs, the father Winn seems to have everything he wants. However, we soon discover his insecurities as he is obsessed with his business rival ( who, btw, is the father of his second daughter's exboyfriend and married to Winn's high school girlfriend) and having a serious crush with one of the young maid of honour, the alluring Dominique.

His wife is the classic glamorous wife but who has a sister, Celeste, proned to alcoholic outburts, saying whatever crosses her mind. And real life gives her a lot of material: the bride is getting married because she is pregnant (the dress needing readjustments to cover her eight-month belly), her sister Livia, heart-broken, struggling not to fall for the best man, a positively 'bad boy', a dead whale lying in the beach nearby, the lobsters bought for the special dinner with the in-laws missing, and more!!!!

The story is so well-developed that you find new details in every page, giving the characters and the plot the complexity and texture present in everyday life. You can symphatise or hate the characters' decisions and motives, but you won't be indiferent, you will feel the need to take sides, to acknowledge people's urges as possibly your own, to question yourself 'what would have I done in his/her place, to face the fact that we, all of us, are simply humans.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

State of Wonder

This story is truly an incredible adventure, peopled by intriguing characters and puzzling settings; a genuine page-turner.

Dr Marina Singh works for a pharmaceutical company. Her partner in the laboratory, Dr Anders Eckman travels to the Amazon jungle to check on Dr Annick Swenson, who has been doing a research for a new drug, very pricy for the company, and hasn't given reports about it. After weeks of no correspondence, a letter from Dr Swenson arrives saying Eckman is dead. What? When? How?

There are no answers in the short communication. Consequently, Marina is sent to the jungle with two purposes: to discovers what is behind Eckman's death (to start with, where is the body?) and to extract information from Dr Swenson about the new drug. She is sent by her boss Mr Fox.

However, not everything is what appears to be.
1- Mr Fox is not only Marina's boss, but also her (secret) lover.
2- Dr Swenson is not only the scientist who is developing a new drug, but she is also Marina's former mentor, and shares with her a tragic moment in Marina's life.
3- The narrative is not only adventurouss and intriguing, but imaginative and colourful. You can feel the humidity of the jungle air coming off the pages, the characters' decisions hiding obscure intentions, the carnavalesque Bovenders, Rodrigo's unvaluable help, 'Easter' pizzling identity, and more!!!!

Ann Patchett's timing is excellent, keeping the pace of the narrative as she includes information to build the characters' past and present. In few lines, she unearths important data for the plot as you have to be careful not to skip content essential for you to understand the development of the mystery.

Learning and entertainment together, this novel will keep you awake long hours past your bedtime, unable to stop reading, to close the book, to leave the jungle.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

The Farming of Bones

'Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.'

This story tells the masacre of Haitains in Dominican Republic in 1937. These two countries are divided by a river, a borderline easy to cross by thousands of peasants looking for work harvesting the sugarcanes. Here is where we find Amabelle, a young Haitian who works in the house of Señora Valencia since she was a child, becoming an orphan as her parents died trying to cross the river/border.

She loves Sebastian. She delivers Señora Valencia's babies. She talks with Papi, as he listens to the radio, trying to get news from Spain, involved in war. During the first part of the book, we get the daily life in the Dominican Republic, people's traditions and beliefs.

A car accident tells us that the situation of the Haitians is pretty unstable. Suddenly, danger arrives and the atmosphere changes completely, becoming the book a page-turner, the reader escaping alongside the narrator, feeling the edge of the machetes, the burning of whole villages.

The mention of vultures clouding the sky gives us the exact measure of the killing; survivors retelling what they have been witnesses of; the reader grasping the horror developing unstoppably.

The memories of the survivors become the collective history written in the wind, the dead kept alive by those who remember them, by those who went through hell and stand alive, a journey that has no end.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

History of the Rain

'We tell stories. We tell stories to pass the time, or go more deeply into it. We tell stories to heal the pain of living.'

This is a book about stories, about retelling and the importance of books in the lives of the readers, about finding answers in the pages of books, in poetry, in the flowing of the river, as the salmon does, upcurrent.

Ruth is a teenaged narrator, telling the story of her family. The first one is her grandfather Reverend Swain and the 'Impossible Standard' he sets for himself and that sets the bar for the following generations. Later, grandfather Abraham, and his 'History of the Salmon in Ireland', struggling to find meaning in a place in which he seriously doesn't belong. Last but not least, Ruth's father Virgil, the poet who never stops working, who has 'ash in his soul'. From him Ruth and Aegny arrive, they own stories waiting ahead of them.

I 've found the story beautifully written. The poetic language makes the narrative flow, God becoming a fisher, hooking people to their destinies, to the after life, off the river.
The characters are described intelligently 'Young Father Tipp came, parked his Starlet the way priest park, on the outwr edge, carried his missal low down and a little behind him the way Clint Estwood carried his gun, loke he'd only use it if he had to.' You imagine them clearly, the humorous tone involving the most incredulous parts, making them believable and understandable.

Those who doesn't have 'Human-Glue', who hide themselves in books, who escape from reality sometimes, will feel totally connected to this story, to the idea that the answers to the big issues are found in books, in the lives of others, in other's adventures.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

English Passengers

This narrative is truly a historical adventure. The reader can feel the salt of the sea wind throughout the whole story along the humorous and dramatic moments lived by an expedition full of colourful characters.

It is the year 1857 and a voyage is leaving to Tasmania as it is believed to be heaven on earth (literally). One of the leaders is Reverend Geoffrey Wilson, who is hoping to find the true site of the Garden of Eden. Through letters and journals, he communicates his feelings and ideas as he faces the perils of the journey and the increasing discontent among the crew.

An antagonist of the reverend is the racial-theorist Dr Potter, whose logical thinking and scientific beliefs show the reader the ideas of the time regarding the aboriginal people and the exotic flora and fauna he is wishing to encounter.

Through the story, the reader is presented with the retellings of the experiences of different characters, like the captain of the ship, Captain Illiam Quillian Kewly, who keeps a secret from everybody: his ship is fleeing British Customs as it is a smuggling vessel. Another interesting point of view is Peevay's, an aboriginal young boy, member of a Tasmanian tribe unsuccessfully fighting the colonisers, their religious influences and the social customes they are trying to enforce in the local inhabitans.

Matthew Kneale uses irony and sarcasm to deal with the less likeable characters and moments. The explotation of the natural resources and the cruelty used with the aborigines are portrayed as the consequence of the stupidity of those who believed they were doing their best to bring civilisation to the corners of the world.

Nowadays, we are aware of the atrocities committed in the name of progress; however, surprises are waiting ahead for those who deserve being punished for their actions.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

instagram:ananbooks

The Invention of Wings

This is a story of powerful women. Women who fight against the restrains of their gender, the colour of their skin and the social customs of their time, and become free in their own terms.

One of them is Sarah Grimke (based on a real-life person), who despite her family's ideas, from a very young age, becomes a determined abolitionist. Witnessing the cruelty of the masters's treatment to the slaves, she leaves her family in the south and moves to the North, giving  a series of lecture and becoming an advocate for the civil rights' movement.

The other one is the slave Sarah is given as a present in her 11th birthday. Her name is Hetty 'Handful' Grimke,  having that nickname as consequence of her unbreakable spirit. Being intelligent and sensible, she becomes a friend with Sarah and together dream of a world in which they would be equal to men.

'The Invention of Wings' makes reference to a quilt Handful makes with her mother Charlotte as the latter tells her how their ancestors used to have wings, portraying them with beautiful images in this piece of cloth essential to keep Handful's dreams of freedom alive when the hard times come.

A page-turner, Sur Monk Kidd has created another story ( she is the author of 'The Secret Life of Bees') in which females support each other in contrast to a world that diminishes them, finding in themselves the strenght to become their own masters.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

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A tale for the time being (Ruth Oseki)

What can I say about  this wonderful story??!!
Great characters in a superb plot, full of beautiful vivid settings and deep insight.
In a remote island in the Pacific northwest, Ruth is fighting with her writer's block as her husband, a super-understanding naturalist is having his own struggle with the climate change.
One day, a hello kitty lunchbox washes upon the shore with the diary of a Japanese girl named Nao. She find herself absorbed by being bullied at school ( cruelest parts ever) and by her family coming apart: her mother disappears behind her new job and her unemployed father wanders through the city at night.
However, the magic moments happen when Nao's 104-year-old grandmother comes into scene: she is a Buddhist priest living in a mountainside place, full of trees and the sound of the ocean. Nao decides to retell her grandmother's history before ending her own life.
As you can see, this narrative containes a lot of dramatic elements. However, the author's tone displays humour to soften the blows that are waiting for the reader.
Highly recommended for those who enjoy an interesting plot with well-crafted characters struggling with the issues our nowadays society entails.

Ana Ovejero

mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com

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