My rating: 4.5 stars
In her first book about the Perez family, Next
Year in Havana, author Chanel Cleeton had introduced us to Beatriz
Perez, Marisol Ferrara’s great-aunt and also older sister to Elisa Perez. Even though the focus of that story was on Marisol
and Elisa, with Beatriz playing only a supporting role, I still remember quite
vividly Beatriz’s strong, spirited, defiant personality – in fact, she was one of
my favorite characters from that story so of course, I was absolutely ecstatic
to learn that Cleeton’s next novel, When We Left Cuba, would essentially
be Beatriz’s story. While Next
Year in Havana was set primarily in Cuba and focused on the time period
of the revolution in which president Batista was ousted and Fidel Castro took
power, When We Left Cuba is set primarily in the United States and
focuses on the aftermath of the revolution, the Cuban exiles living in Florida
and their fight to reclaim Cuba, as well as the island’s relationship with the
rest of the world under Castro’s leadership.
In addition, this story touched on elements that we would normally find
in a spy thriller, as Beatriz becomes involved with the CIA and goes on a few
secret missions for them with the goal of killing Castro in order to avenge the
death of her twin brother Alejandro and the loss of her family’s home and fortunes. Story-wise, there was a lot at play here –politics,
history (both Cuban history as well as American), romance, espionage, family,
culture, etc. – plus quite a few characters, both ones we were introduced to in
the previous story as well as new ones, yet not once did I feel overwhelmed by
everything that was going on – rather, I was captivated by the story and couldn’t
put the book down once I started reading it.
I’m usually not a reader of spy/espionage-themed stories and more often
than not, I also don’t take well to stories heavy on American politics, but this
book defied my expectations in this area -- both of these themes were incorporated
extremely well, to the point that they didn’t overpower the story, which I
absolutely appreciated.
One of the biggest draws to this book for me was the
character of Beatriz Perez herself – a wonderfully written character who was at
once complex, intriguing, and absolutely unforgettable. I loved her sassiness, her independent
spirit, her boldness in following her heart and not caring what others thought
of her or her actions, her open defiance of convention and refusal to conform
to what society and her parents expected of her (which was to marry someone
rich and well-connected, have children, and fade into the role of demure housewife). Beautiful, smart, funny, willful, and headstrong,
Beatriz was the type of person who wanted to be recognized and respected for
her own merits, who valued her own independence and freedom and making her own
way in the worl d, who
wanted to shape her own destiny and not be a woman needing to be “taken care of”
by a man or whose worth in the world could only be defined by the merits and achievements
of her significant other. At the same
time, she was also a woman who knew how to love passionately, fearlessly, boldly,
devotedly, yet still be able to approach the same relationship with pragmatism
and discernment. In her Author’s Note,
Cleeton mentioned that after introducing Beatriz’s character in Next
Year in Havana, she had to stop halfway through drafting that novel in
order to write the first chapter of this book because Beatriz’s story “was
pushing its way out, demanding to be told” – that’s exactly how I felt about
Beatriz even before I started reading her story!
Once again, Cleeton does a fantastic job of seamlessly
melding historical events with a captivating story while at the same time
giving us beautifully drawn, imperfect characters whom we can’t help falling in
love with as the story progresses. While
it’s not required to have read the first novel in order to appreciate this one,
I would still recommend reading Next Year in Havana prior to going
into this one because of the background it provides in terms of the Perez
family and what happened to them during the revolution in Cuba. I enjoyed revisiting some of the characters
from the previous story and also seeing how perfectly the timelines from both
stories aligned. I’m not sure if Cleeton’s
next historical novel (which, according to the note at the back of this book, is
scheduled to come out in Winter 2020) will also be about the Perez family, but even
if it’s not, given how much I loved her last 2 novels, no doubt I am still
highly anticipating its release.
Historical fiction fans definitely should pick both of these novels up,
especially those who are interested in better understanding Cuban history and
its role on the world stage.
Received ARC from
Berkley Books via Penguin First to Read program
No comments:
Post a Comment