Review: The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes (by Chanel Cleeton)

My Rating: 4 stars 

As much as I wish for it to be otherwise, my reading life is off to a late start this year.  I wasn’t able to read much in January or February due to some things I had to take care of in my personal life, so now, heading into March, I’m trying to play catch up with my TBR.  Though I guess if I’m being honest, it’s not that I didn’t do any reading the past 2 months (because I’m always reading something), but rather I didn’t want to spend time writing about it.  In any case, now that I have things a little bit more under control, I’m starting to slowly but surely clear out my ARC list.

 

It's actually a little bit ironic that the first ARC I’m starting with this year doesn’t publish until July, but that’s how things ended up turning out.  The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes is Chanel Cleeton’s latest Cuban-themed historical fiction novel and it’s definitely a good one!  I’ve read most (but not all) of Cleeton’s past novels and especially enjoyed her series about the Perez family, though her other novels (the ones not about the Perez family) have been a hit or miss for me overall.  With this latest one, I’m guessing I enjoyed it so much because the storyline revolves around a lost book and its connection to three women from three different time periods. 

In the present timeline (London in 2024), Margo Reynolds is hired to help her client find a rare book that was written 120 years ago, but there is a huge catch – only one copy of the book is currently in existence.  Though Margo accepts the challenge, she quickly realizes that she may actually be in over her head as other parties interested in the book start to come out of the woodwork and her life is placed in danger.  The timeline then moves to Havana in 1966, where librarian Pilar Castillo lives in grief and anger over the loss of her husband, who was arrested and imprisoned for going against Fidel Castro’s regime.  Pilar comes into possession of the mysterious book when it is turned over to her for safekeeping by a neighbor and eventually becomes more than a source of comfort for her as she endures the difficulties of living under Castro’s repressive regime.  Finally, the third timeline, in 1900, introduces us to the author of the book, Eva Fuentes, a Cuban teacher who is given the opportunity to travel to the United States as part of a summer cultural exchange program at Harvard University. During Eva’s stay there, she experiences both joy and heartbreak that not only end up altering the course of her life, but also provide the inspiration for her novel.

 

I have to admit that I was a bit dubious at first how the story would unfold given how far apart the three timelines were.  It turns out I didn’t have to worry though, as Cleeton definitely knew what she was doing in making Eva’s book the central thread that connected the seemingly disparate timelines together, but in a way that was seamless and made sense for the story’s development.  Given my affinity for historical fiction, no doubt that I enjoyed Eva’s and Pilar’s timelines more -- Margo’s timeline was well done overall, but since the three timelines alternated with each chapter, it did feel a little jarring to jump from an early 20^th century historical setting to a modern day murder mystery setting in 2024.  Things turned out fine in the end though.

 

As an avid reader and also a writer myself, I love learning about the behind-the-scenes aspects of how a particular story came to be as well as the inspirations for certain characters and events, which is perhaps why Cleeton’s latest work resonated with me more than her previous novels did.  Speaking of behind-the-scenes, Cleeton writes in her Author’s Note that The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes is a “love letter to the power of books and the impact they leave on our lives,” which is one of the main reasons why she had Eva’s fictional book be what links the three women in the three different timelines together.  I couldn’t agree more!  Cleeton fans will definitely want to pick this one up, but those who enjoy “books about books” will likely enjoy this one as well.

 

Received ARC from Berkley via Book Browse First Impressions program.

2024 Year in Review

Happy New Year!!!

As I type up this post literally 20 minutes into the start of the new year, I recognize that this is the latest that I’ve ever posted my “year in review” recap since I started tracking my reading a few years back.  Another first for me this year (2024) in terms of my reading life is that I was way off the mark with my reading goals – at the beginning of the year, I had planned to read between 50-60 books, which is the range that I had been averaging the past few years, however I ended up having to revise my reading goal in the middle of the year when I realized I was nowhere near being able to make the number I had initially planned.  I ended the year with 31 books logged and read* according to Goodreads as well as my reading log (though as noted with the *, there is a caveat which I will explain later in this post).

 

My reading life this year has been an interesting one. I would say that the best way to describe it would be a “quality over quantity” year.  Sure, I didn’t end up reading as many books as I usually do, but nearly every book I read (with the exception of 3) fell into the 4-5 star range, which is, of course, a rare occurrence, even for a reader like me who is highly selective about what I read (mostly due to time constraints with having to juggle so many things going on in my life).

 

Another thing I realize as I reflect on my reading life this year is that I have been less of a stickler with the “mechanics” of reading – for example, religiously logging and writing a review for every book I read and not allowing myself to move on to another book until I do so – and instead, let the reading experience speak for itself.  Now I have to be honest in saying that I didn’t plan it this way – as the year started, I was just as determined as I’ve been in the past to log and review every book I read, but halfway through the year, the plan kind of fell apart because both work and school became increasingly busy – that coupled with additional responsibilities at home that placed further constraints on my time made it difficult to stay with the plan…once I started falling behind with my reading, it was nearly impossible to catch up. 

 

And here is where the caveat comes into play.  For school especially, I had a few classes where we had to read entire books (there were a few months where I actually read 1 book a week) and given that we had to write extensively about these books for class (including, in some cases, academic papers), I felt like it would be overkill to write reviews for these books on top of that (plus I was in a time crunch), so I decided to forego that process.  I would estimate that there were around 10-12 books I had read this year that fell into this category.

 

Overall, I would have to say that, despite not meeting my reading goals this past year (in terms of actual numbers, that is), I’m still quite happy with my reading life, as I was able to read more high quality, meaningful books this year than in years past.  Of course, being the perfectionist that I am, I will probably set an overly ambitious reading goal again in 2025 (and end up falling short of the number and having to adjust it mid-year), but given what I experienced this past year, I am not going to worry about it and see how things play out.

 

So without further ado, here is my recap of the books I read 2024 (again, these are the ones that I had actually logged and wrote reviews for).  Note that after ditching ratings for my recap last year, I decided to go back to listing based on ratings, mostly because I’m already late with this post and ratings was the easiest way to go…

 

**

 

Favorite Reads of 2024

 

Books I rated 5 stars:

 

-        The Book of Fire by Christy Lefteri (published 2024)

-        Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (published 2010)

-        The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (published 2024)

-        The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer (published 2024)

-        And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini (published 2013)

-        Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (published 2015)

 

 

Books I rated 4.5 stars:

 

-        Mercury by Amy Jo Burns (published 2024)

-        The Women by Kristin Hannah (published 2024)

-        After Annie by Anna Quindlan (published 2024)

-        Real Americans by Rachel Khong (published 2024)

-        Only the Beautiful by Susan Meissner (published 2023)

-        Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (published 1814)

-        The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (published 2024)

-        Rental House by Weike Wang (published 2024)

 

 

Books I rated 4 stars:

 

-        Atonement by Ian McEwan (published 2001)

-        River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure (published 2024)

-        The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan (published 2024)

-        Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg (published 2024)

-        The Twilight Garden by Sara Nisha Adams (published 2024)

-        The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean (published 2024)

-        Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate (published 2024)

-        Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen by Jon M. Chu (published 2024)

-        Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (published 2024)

-        Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty (published 2024)

-        The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz (published 2024)

-        Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia (published 2011)

-        Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (published 2024)

-        Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney (publishes 2025)

 

 

Books I rated 3 to 3.5 stars:

 

-        The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn (published 2024)

-        The House on Biscayne Bay by Chanel Cleeton (published 2024)

-        Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger (published 2024)

Review: Beautiful Ugly (by Alice Feeney)

 My Rating: 4 stars 

Alice Feeney has become one of my “go-to” authors in the thriller/suspense genre over the years, to the point that I’ll automatically pick up any new book she writes, sometimes before I even know what the story will be about.  Having read all of Feeney’s books, I’ve enjoyed nearly all of them, though there have definitely been some that were more “miss” than “hit” (and only one book so far that I hated enough to regret reading).  Her newest book, Beautiful Ugly, is one that I have mixed feelings about.  On the one hand, I continue to be blown away by Feeney’s ability to come up with original, mind-boggling twists for story after story (she is known as the “Queen of Twists” after all) -- most of the time, when I read her books, I’m not able to guess the ending (this newest book, with its back-to-back twists dropped one after the other near the end, certainly was no exception).  On the other hand, I also feel that, with each book, the plot seems to get more convoluted and the ending a tad more outlandish while the characters behave in ways that make them less likeable as the story unfolds (all of which were definitely the case here).  With all that said, I also feel that this book is Feeney’s most atmospheric one to date (I heard that there are sound effects on the audio book version that enhances the atmospheric experience manifold, so might want to give that version a try), as well as the most clever – even though I’ve read all of Feeney’s books and am more than familiar with her style, the various twists still took me by surprise (after I finished the book, I realized that she had mirrored a very similar format from a previous book for one of the twists, but it was so smooth and seamless that I totally did not catch on). 

 

I’m keeping this review brief and vague on purpose, as there really isn’t a whole lot that can be said without giving parts of the story away.  I read some reviews that say this book is Feeney’s best one yet and while I don’t necessarily agree with that statement, I will say that it is definitely one of her better ones.  This is also the “twist-y-ist” of all her novels in the sense that there are multiple “what the heck just happened” moments that kept me turning the pages and wanting to know how everything comes together.  As for the ending – all I’m going to say is that the opinions are bound to be mixed on it (for me personally, I haven’t figured out how I feel yet about what happens at the end).  Overall, my favorite of Feeney’s novels is still her debut Sometimes I Lie, followed closely by Rock Paper Scissors (His & Hers was pretty good as well, but not as memorable as these two).  This newest book will definitely satisfy long-time Feeney fans, though for those who have never read her, I wouldn’t recommend starting with this one.  Also, her novels tend to lean darker on the psychological thriller spectrum, so that’s something to keep in mind as well.  I’m honestly curious to see what Feeney will come up with next – she has written 7 books so far and all of them have been very different both in scope and story, so I wonder which direction she will go next.  Whatever the case, I know I will be there for it!