mandy reviewed Perla by Carolina De Robertis
None
4 stars
Finally finished this book! I'm not a great lover of magical realism but the device used in this book was very well done.
The problem is that the whimsical, flowery writing made it difficult to maintain attention at times. I read to about 50%, felt quite lost, started again, read to 50% again and realised I'd probably never finish this book and signed up for an Audible trial just so I could get through it. Turns out, audio is probably the best format, read by the author. Other reviews mentioned not being able to distinguish the two main POVs but Perla's are written in 1st person, the guest in 3rd person.
I originally sought out this book because I wanted to learn more about Argentina's Dirty War. You learn a lot in this novel and a lot of it is very graphic and brutal. Trigger warnings include torture, kidnapping, theft …
Finally finished this book! I'm not a great lover of magical realism but the device used in this book was very well done.
The problem is that the whimsical, flowery writing made it difficult to maintain attention at times. I read to about 50%, felt quite lost, started again, read to 50% again and realised I'd probably never finish this book and signed up for an Audible trial just so I could get through it. Turns out, audio is probably the best format, read by the author. Other reviews mentioned not being able to distinguish the two main POVs but Perla's are written in 1st person, the guest in 3rd person.
I originally sought out this book because I wanted to learn more about Argentina's Dirty War. You learn a lot in this novel and a lot of it is very graphic and brutal. Trigger warnings include torture, kidnapping, theft of children / trafficking, murder, sexual assault.
The plot in Perla is its strength, what happened to the characters in the past and present. I'm very pleased that I persevered with it as it was a very important story to tell.