Maria de Zayas Sotomayor (1590–1647)

This was much better than I thought it was going to be considering it was the first book I had to read for university. I also have never read any Spanish literature before. I loved the style of writing that allowed for the ballads that expressed deeper emotions. I also loved the way the book was a festival with the stories being part of that festival. Like a story inside a story inside another story. It was a great way to set up a collection of short stories.
The second half of the book "Tales of Disillusion" was a lot darker than the first half "Tales of Love" where the stories had relatively happy endings. Especially 'Forewarned but Fooled' which was just plain witty and I've recounted it to a few friends and we've laughed over it. The 'Fifth Tale of Disillusion' was my favourite out of the selected tales in the second half because of the graphic description of Dona Ines after six years. It painfully describes the torments she experienced even though she was an innocent women.
The writing was beautiful and even though it took me longer than other books I throughly enjoyed it. After reading the descriptions of the other 'Tales of Disillusion" in the footnotes towards the end of the book, I kinda wish I could've read all of them.… (más)

This was much better than I thought it was going to be considering it was the first book I had to read for university. I also have never read any Spanish literature before. I loved the style of writing that allowed for the ballads that expressed deeper emotions. I also loved the way the book was a festival with the stories being part of that festival. Like a story inside a story inside another story. It was a great way to set up a collection of short stories.
The second half of the book "Tales of Disillusion" was a lot darker than the first half "Tales of Love" where the stories had relatively happy endings. Especially 'Forewarned but Fooled' which was just plain witty and I've recounted it to a few friends and we've laughed over it. The 'Fifth Tale of Disillusion' was my favourite out of the selected tales in the second half because of the graphic description of Dona Ines after six years. It painfully describes the torments she experienced even though she was an innocent women.
The writing was beautiful and even though it took me longer than other books I throughly enjoyed it. After reading the descriptions of the other 'Tales of Disillusion" in the footnotes towards the end of the book, I kinda wish I could've read all of them.… (más)