Leila Cobo

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would -- it was passed on to me by someone who has a higher tolerance for "chick lit" than I do! This book is more compelling than that.

It tells the story of a young woman whose mother died years ago. Gabriella lives with her father in California, but makes an annual trip to Colombia to spend time with her maternal grandmother. The story takes place in Colombia, where Gabriella finds her mother's diary, which starts out with "Dear Gabriella". Through show more the diary, Gabriella learns about her mother's life. The story alternates between Gabriella's story and that of her mother, Helene. There are some interesting parallels between them and we can see how the three generations of women deal with similar issues. Well written, interesting story. show less

This book was very close to my heart, as I have two adopted children from Colombia. I enjoyed the tour of Colombia and felt she had the emotions correct especially regarding the adoptive parents. Asher seemed very much like my son with his looks and love for soccer. Unlike Asher, my son didn't get a second chance. He suffered with depression and took his own life at age 20. So this story was even harder for me to read.

What I hoped for didn't happen. I felt the ending, the meeting with Rita, show more was rather anticlimatic. Rita even thinks so in the novel. I would like to think and I will continue to think that my children's birth mother did love them. She gave them life and then gave them to me both major sacrifices that I will cherish and honor.

My daughter has spoken about searching for her biological mother and after reading The Second Time We Met I truly hope she never does. show less

When Gabriella was four years old her mother, Helena, died in a plane crash. Her American father wanted her to know her Colombian heritage and family, so he took her to Cali to visit her maternal grandmother every year. As Gabriella got older, she would go for the visits by herself, staying with her grandmother for a month at a time.

When Gabriella is twenty-one, she goes for her month long visit. On her first night there, her cousin drags her to a party and she meets, and is attracted to, a show more dangerous young man. At first she tries to keep her relationship with him secret, but eventually decides she doesn’t care who knows.

When her grandmother tells Gabriella that her old family home will be torn down to build luxury condos, Gabriella returns for one last visit. While she’s there, she discovers her mother’s old diary, which her mother wrote to her. What she reads in that diary changes Gabriella’s life forever and causes her to make some decisions she might not have made otherwise.

TELL ME SOMETHING TRUE by Leila Cobo grabbed me from the start and never let go. This book is about relationships and the damage lies can do to them. The story alternates between Gabriella’s viewpoint in the present day and her mother’s viewpoint from the past via her diary, with one short chapter from Gabriella’s grandmother’s viewpoint. I thought Gabriella was a great character and I could really relate to her, even though our lives are nothing alike. I couldn’t put the book down because I had to know what was in the diary and how it was going to affect Gabriella. Gabriella did some things that I didn’t agree with, but I could understand why she made the choices she did. I think anyone who enjoys stories about relationships will enjoy this book. show less

Review: Tell Me Something True by Leila Cobo. The subject matter about a deceased mother, Helena leaving behind a diary that she started when her daughter, Gabriella was born. She addressed Gabriella as she wrote for a while then Helena’s writing went more towards the style of journaling her thoughts and her private life issues. The story goes back and forth with the daughter’s lifestyle to her mother narrating a small part at a time of what she had written in the diary of her life show more style. Some of story was captivating but didn’t really have a strong grip on me as I read. It was somewhat confusing as each of these two characters thoughts weren’t organized to have the reader know which character was narrating as you went along. It’s one of those books were I had to go back a page and say to myself, “Oh it’s the daughter thoughts or it’s the mother’s thoughts.” However, it was a daughter having questions about her mother that she never was told the truth about. She was young when her mother went away to publish a book and she always thought that tragedy is what stopped her from coming home. Her mother died in a plane crash when Gabriella was around four-years-old and she grew up with an overprotective grandmother in Cali, Columbia even though Melcom, her doting father lived back in the US. Gabriella is the one who found the diary years later and would not allow anyone to read it however, she does get answers to so many questions and how her grandmother, her mother and herself have really lived the same kind of life through generations of another family’s life, until one day Gabriella cuts the rope that has tied them all together over the years…. The story was interesting but without flair unless you would consider Gabriella’s love affair with the son of drug King Pin who was still behind bars in prison…. I found a few flaws with the story and wished it was better written but not every book is going to send shivers up your spine…. show less