"Disillusion comes sooner or later, but it always comes, it doesn’t miss an appointment, it never has."




I debated whether I'd give this 3 or 4 stars, but I eventually decided on 4 -- I'll get to that later.

The first chapter was brilliant. I was engaged from the start and was fascinated by the meandering venture through the complicated but ultimately regular life of Antonio Yammara.

As it went on, though, it diverged from this and by the 3rd chapter we were starting to explore the lives of Elaine and Ricardo.
Unfortunately, this is where my regard of the novel began to go downhill.

The decision to tell these stories by having Antonio transcribe information that he is learning was, in my opinion, not a good one. It quickly became boring and uninteresting, like I was reading a Wikipedia article, and i became exhausted by Antonio's "then this then that happened" narration.

I also found myself indifferent of his relationship with Maya. It felt unnecessary and random and every time they interacted I wanted to close the book and stop reading.


Furthermore, the final chapter, in particular the final few pages, was jarring and unfortunate to read.
I understand the point of the ending, however it wasn't satisfying in any way, and didn't leave me wanting to analyze the message it was depicting, as I'm sure was intended. I just felt regretful that I hadn't stopped reading at the end of the previous chapter to spare myself from the ending.



Ultimately, though, I was obliged to give it 4 stars.
My enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the novel is not an indictment of the quality. Just because I would have preferred it took a different direction (perhaps one that didn't feel so draining to take) doesn't mean that it was objectively bad and I shouldn't impair Vásquez's rating on a subjective opinion.

If you feel that this book is for you, then go ahead. ( )

I read this for a reading challenge and, while it did sound interesting, I ended up enjoying this more than I expected to. The tone of this book is very much ne of despair and things falling apart - very appropriate given its contents. It deals a lot with corruption and drug smuggling and grief. I haven't read the original, but the atmosphere is captured incredibly well in the English translation. I imagine it must be at least as good in the original.

The text is beautiful and easy to follow (even if the contents are challenging at times). I very much enjoyed most of it but pats gave me somewhat men writing women vibes (like a character being somewhat fixated on what her breasts look like - I have never met anyone who thinks this way). The characters are incredibly flawed and complex and I loved seeing how they change as the descent into chaos and despair progresses. ( )

Ok, pero no great! La primera mirad se me hizo pesada; la segunda parte mejor. ( )

Translated from Spanish. Very sensory novel. ( )

I just wanted to add, as I don’t seem to find mentions of it from other reviewers, that this book is also about Post-Traumatic Disorder. ( )