Margaret Mascarenhas

The book was OK- it was confusing at times because each chapter is in the voice of a different character, and it was hard to keep all of the characters straight. A few times I had to go back and scan through previous chapters to recall why a "new" name sounded familiar. Also, the ending left much to be desired, and while I did take Spanish in HS and college, I still didn't know some of the things being said, as many times the author would inflect certain words or sentences in Spanish. But for the most part, I did enjoy reading the individual stories of many of the characters.

Warning: The title is a bit mis-leading. While the underlying story is of the friendship between Lily and Irene, a better title would be "The Lives and Past of the People in Lily Martinez's Life".… (más)

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did. All of the life stories contained therein were interesting, and many were fascinating, and even though I know zilch about the history of Venezuela I could still relate to the book. But it skipped around in time and place and point of view WAY too much. I had a hard time figuring out what was happening to who. There were several instances where the book says "So-and-so did this," some important event, but doesn't actually describe the action for several more chapters. And the final revelation about Irene Dos Santos was a bit of a let-down -- though quite a believable let-down.

I would probably give this author another chance. She seems very ambitious, and I think the large cast in this story held together well. It's just that I'm not used to trying to juggle so many different people's life stories at the same time.… (más)