The Turkish Lover

This is book 3 in Santiago's series of memoirs. This covers the years of her life that she spent with a much older, obviously married man, with whom she followed around the country living in various states while both he and she attended colleges and universities. Santiago clearly had poor taste in men, and while I didn't like the idea that she stayed with this older man, she did get an excellent education out of her travels with him. It does bother me that she never acknowledges that she has an excellent education and this affords her with many opportunities that most young women of her generation did not have.

The best of the three memoirs is the first one. Esmeralda is the most likable and understandable in that first book, even if show more she is a child in that book. For much of the second book she is a spoiled teenaged brat. In this book, she is a wandering woman who can't figure out what she wants and wants other people to get it for her. In the course of reading all three memoirs I kept wanting to shout at her that she should just grow up, everything is not always about you. She whines about how she is discriminated against because she is Puerto Rican and yet that very fact has given her the privileges she has - like an education at Harvard.

In this part of her memoir the author is very honest about her relationships and her lack of resolve in figuring out what to do with or about the men in her life. I do admire this honesty. She writes about her longing to return to Puerto Rico and at the very end of this book she does so. This volume takes her from New York City to Lubbock, Texas to Syracuse, New York and finally to Boston. On this journey we get to understand her education - not only from school, but from all the other parts of life in general.

I don't think that there will be another book by this woman, as according to Wikipedia, she had a severe stroke in 2008 that affected her ability to speak and read which has slowed her writing output considerably. Nothing by her has been published since 2011.

The writing in each of the memoirs has been excellent and her honesty about herself and her life is to be applauded. If you want some insight as to the life of new immigrants I highly recommend the first book in the series "When I Was Puerto Rican", and maybe that memoir will capture your attention, as it did mine, and inspire you to read the other two memoirs. show less

This book should have ended before the midpoint. Author and abuse survivor Esmeralda Santiago knows what the title character's victim did not know.

My final recovery read and I enjoyed but not what I was expecting. I just wondered why the hell she stayed with Ulvi so long and the way it ended sucked ( with Ulvi- not the book). I guess that's life. Read it in one day.

3.75 stars