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katie_greenwinginmymouth's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This was a tough read in many respects but what an incredible book! Set in the aftermath of the civil war in El Salvador the book uses a simple but highly effective method to convey a really important message. The story focuses on the lives of women, who in particular a mother and her daughters. The mother is a former compañera who fought in the forces opposing the military-led junta government. There are no names whatsoever used in the book and therefore all of the women are described by their relationship to others, for example mother, daughter or compañera. Whilst this poses one of the book’s major challenges for the reader, it helps to express incredibly effectively how women are understood via their relationships with others, how they are treated as a result of this and how they have to fulfil several roles at once, particularly the role of mother as well as combatant.
Despite no names being used in the book the significance of naming is frequently referenced by the characters. All of the compañeros chose pseudonyms in order to hide their identities whilst fighting. These names carry huge emotional weight and many continue to use them after the war, almost as if the gravity of what has happened has erased their previous identity. There is a very moving scene early on the book where the mother is reunited with her eldest daughter who has ended up adopted (purchased would be a more correct term given that money changed hands) by a French couple who have given the daughter a new name different to the one the mother had given her child. The daughter thinks that her original name is “too Catholic for her taste, too guerilla. In French, it lacked charm and sounded flat. Had she kept it, she would have been the butt of every joke at school. Her biological mother, in turn, thought it the most beautiful name in the world. It was the sum total of all her beliefs.”
Another major theme is the contrast between the sort of camouflage women needed as compañeras in the war compared to the sort of camouflage the daughters need in order to feel safe in a society full of predatory men. For instance the compañeras are described as trying to hide the de-feminising effects of combat gear when they need to leave the mountains and visit the city, filing their heels and painting toenails, whilst in the contemporary timeline it’s almost the exact opposite where young women are described attempting to suppress their femininity in order to not be a target for male attention. You get a really strong sense of the constant threat of violence against women. There are repeated references to having to pre-plan escape routes, carry a knife with you, references to worrying about how you’re dressed, what makeup you’re wearing, and repeated references to unwanted attention from men as you walk through the street.
The final thing that really stood out to me was the difficulty of processing trauma when you have been trained to keep secrets at all costs, because your life and your comrades’ lives depended on it. The mother talks with scepticism about the potential usefulness of therapy and this really brought home to me how difficult it is for those affected by the war to find a path to rehabilitation. The civil war has created a deep and long lasting divide in society and this has endless repercussions in the present day. Hernandez has written an absolutely incredible piece of literature that manages to convey this without sensationalising or distorting the testimony of those who lived these realties. That the book has so much emotional heart whilst also creating a kind of universal and communal sense of women’s experiences is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Absolutely phenomenal.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, and War
internationalreads's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, War, Torture, Sexual violence, Rape, Sexism, Pregnancy, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Gun violence, Grief, Death of parent, Death, Confinement, Adult/minor relationship, and Abandonment
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