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georgiarybanks's review
emotional
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.25
arlenazul's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
eunicek82's review
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
I’m torn on this one. On one hand, the centering of women’s experiences during and after the El Salvadoran Civil War is very powerful, yet the complete lack of names makes this quite a confusing and difficult read. I lost a bit of the plot thread especially in the back half. I understand that removing names generalizes the story to the country, but I think it detracted a bit from the narrative for me.
pero_tefi's review against another edition
3.0
3.5
Roza, tumba, quema es un libro que trata sobre una mujer demovilizada y sus hijas. En un principio pense que se trataba de Colombia y nuestra guerra, pronto vi que se trata de una escritora de Salvador y de otra guerra latinoamericana, lo cual hace que la temática sea aun mas interesante ya que logro conseguir un aspecto o un sentimiento más amplio, que acobija una situación de Latinoamerica como tal y las guerrillas. Fuera de esto, la forma en que trata no solo la situación de desmovilizados y posguerra sino también de los casos de mujeres y sus familias es sútil e intima. En mi opinion, una gran forma de conseguir perspectiva sobre estas personas que los medios quieren o invisibilizar o villanizar, Claudia Hernández no necesita justificar ni alivianar la violencia que ocurre y que la personaje principal pudo haber hecho, quien es bueno y quien es malo no creo que sea lo importante, sino como se vive, quien merece oportunidades, y si acaso no somos todos sin importar nuestros actos. El relato que tenemos es de una familia que trata de ser lo mejor que pueden ser, y que constantemente tienen obstaculos hasta dentro de su propio circulo.
Sin embargo, y aunque por parte de la historia me encantaria darle 5 estrellas, la forma en que esta historia es escrita es lo que me hace darle 3 estrellas. Puedo comprender el deseo de no dar nombre a ninguno de los personajes y describirlas o nombrarlas por sus roles, como la madre, la abuela, la primogenita, la mayor de las criadas con ella, etc., pero esto no quita que es muy complicado seguir el ritmo cuando estos roles cambian de acuerdo a la perspectiva de quien las esta nombrando. Por culpa de esto se me fue muy dificil comprender quienes fueron las personas que hicieron ciertas acciones y cuales no, pense que la segunda hija fue la que viajo para despues ver que fue la tercera, pense que la primogenita había ido al país en algún punto pero parece que no. Así que si creo que esta decisión afecto mucho la experiencia del lector y lo efectivo que sería la transmisión del mensaje.
Roza, tumba, quema es un libro que trata sobre una mujer demovilizada y sus hijas. En un principio pense que se trataba de Colombia y nuestra guerra, pronto vi que se trata de una escritora de Salvador y de otra guerra latinoamericana, lo cual hace que la temática sea aun mas interesante ya que logro conseguir un aspecto o un sentimiento más amplio, que acobija una situación de Latinoamerica como tal y las guerrillas. Fuera de esto, la forma en que trata no solo la situación de desmovilizados y posguerra sino también de los casos de mujeres y sus familias es sútil e intima. En mi opinion, una gran forma de conseguir perspectiva sobre estas personas que los medios quieren o invisibilizar o villanizar, Claudia Hernández no necesita justificar ni alivianar la violencia que ocurre y que la personaje principal pudo haber hecho, quien es bueno y quien es malo no creo que sea lo importante, sino como se vive, quien merece oportunidades, y si acaso no somos todos sin importar nuestros actos. El relato que tenemos es de una familia que trata de ser lo mejor que pueden ser, y que constantemente tienen obstaculos hasta dentro de su propio circulo.
Sin embargo, y aunque por parte de la historia me encantaria darle 5 estrellas, la forma en que esta historia es escrita es lo que me hace darle 3 estrellas. Puedo comprender el deseo de no dar nombre a ninguno de los personajes y describirlas o nombrarlas por sus roles, como la madre, la abuela, la primogenita, la mayor de las criadas con ella, etc., pero esto no quita que es muy complicado seguir el ritmo cuando estos roles cambian de acuerdo a la perspectiva de quien las esta nombrando. Por culpa de esto se me fue muy dificil comprender quienes fueron las personas que hicieron ciertas acciones y cuales no, pense que la segunda hija fue la que viajo para despues ver que fue la tercera, pense que la primogenita había ido al país en algún punto pero parece que no. Así que si creo que esta decisión afecto mucho la experiencia del lector y lo efectivo que sería la transmisión del mensaje.
brettpet's review
2.0
I picked up Slash and Burn in my library's new arrivals section and the plot description immediately jumped out at me--generational family drama mixed with civil war conflict? My mind immediately jumped to Garcia Marquez's work like One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera . Sadly, Burn is nowhere near the caliber of those books due to a baffling author choice: giving none of the characters names. It's quite literally the opposite of Solitude's common complaint of "too many characters". This book has a refined amount of main characters, but no names or defining attributes to differentiate them.
This issue may boil down to translation from the book's original language to English. The afterword points out, "In Spanish, which does not need to repeat pronouns quite as often, the ambiguity stems from a scarcity of designation. In English, the ambiguity stems from abundance...". And god, I wish this afterword had been a prelude instead, because this part really summed up my confusion with the book: "There is the firstborn daughter, who is also the "daughter in that other country", and the "faraway daughter", and the "missing daughter", and "the daughter they [the other daughters] did not grow up with" and..." you get the point. There are four major female characters in this book, the grandmother, mother, and the latter's two daughters (I'm not counting the third daughter as a major character), and you will inevitably reach a point with this book where you read the word "she" twenty times on a single page and your brain will want to shut down.
I'm sure there is a beautiful story within Slash and Burn and some of the humanist themes seeped through the book's obtuse layers, but I can't reccomend the English adaptation at all. I was struggling with the book once the daughter was introduced, praying that names would be added but then confirming my suspicions with the other Goodreads reviews. I did my best with the remaining 250 pages, but you really can't help skimming passages due to redudance and lack of characterization. This could have easily been a DNF for me, but I wanted to power through and even then felt unrewarded.
This issue may boil down to translation from the book's original language to English. The afterword points out, "In Spanish, which does not need to repeat pronouns quite as often, the ambiguity stems from a scarcity of designation. In English, the ambiguity stems from abundance...". And god, I wish this afterword had been a prelude instead, because this part really summed up my confusion with the book: "There is the firstborn daughter, who is also the "daughter in that other country", and the "faraway daughter", and the "missing daughter", and "the daughter they [the other daughters] did not grow up with" and..." you get the point. There are four major female characters in this book, the grandmother, mother, and the latter's two daughters (I'm not counting the third daughter as a major character), and you will inevitably reach a point with this book where you read the word "she" twenty times on a single page and your brain will want to shut down.
I'm sure there is a beautiful story within Slash and Burn and some of the humanist themes seeped through the book's obtuse layers, but I can't reccomend the English adaptation at all. I was struggling with the book once the daughter was introduced, praying that names would be added but then confirming my suspicions with the other Goodreads reviews. I did my best with the remaining 250 pages, but you really can't help skimming passages due to redudance and lack of characterization. This could have easily been a DNF for me, but I wanted to power through and even then felt unrewarded.
hannahgough's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
kdominey's review
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
alicerebekah's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
lllem00n's review
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers. scarred in war, protected in ambiguity. an account of the civil war and it's aftermath in el salvador. this is a feat, if i had to muddle through a bit confused by the pronouns (characters were referred to only by their relations to eachother, not by name), but then, obscurity was the point, their relation to the collective their qualifiers. Slash and Burn by Claudia Hernández and translated by Julia Sanchez.