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sarahanne8382's review against another edition
4.0
Revisiting his 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Hijuelos tells the story of the muse behind the Mambo Kings biggest hit. Maria Garcia y Ciufuentes begins the book as a 17-year-old illiterate country bumpkin who must quickly learn street smarts in Havana's club scene in the 1940s and '50s. As a headlining dancer at the numerous second-tier clubs of that era, Maria eventually meets successful gangster Ignacio who sets her up with a comfortable life, but is anything but faithful and eventually becomes abusive. In walks gallant but struggling musician Nestor Castillo and the two embark on a passionate love affair, but ultimately Maria must choose between love and security. The story continues as Maria deals with the consequences of her actions.
While covering similar territory, reading Mambo Kings is not required to appreciate this story. A few instances that occur in both books are told very differently this time around thanks to the different perspectives of the characters narrating, so everything is new this time around. Mambo Kings was an achingly beautiful story about love and longing and missed opportunities and music's ability to express all of that. While Hijuelos still has a lyrical quality to his narration, Beautiful Maria is instead a more realistic account of a young woman trying not to be taken advantage of and making hard choices to survive. One thing they do have in common are the explicit and numerous sex scenes, so these are clearly books for adults. Overall, these are two unique books, and I highly recommend both of them.
While covering similar territory, reading Mambo Kings is not required to appreciate this story. A few instances that occur in both books are told very differently this time around thanks to the different perspectives of the characters narrating, so everything is new this time around. Mambo Kings was an achingly beautiful story about love and longing and missed opportunities and music's ability to express all of that. While Hijuelos still has a lyrical quality to his narration, Beautiful Maria is instead a more realistic account of a young woman trying not to be taken advantage of and making hard choices to survive. One thing they do have in common are the explicit and numerous sex scenes, so these are clearly books for adults. Overall, these are two unique books, and I highly recommend both of them.
dozenthhoney's review against another edition
2.0
I couldn't finish this. I remember Maria being a pretty shallow, one-dimensional character in The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love and this book didn't fill her out or make her any more likable for me.
siria's review against another edition
1.0
God, this was dreadful. The only way this book could have been more a straight male fantasy is if it had been narrated by a penis—and believe me, there enough descriptions of improbably huge penises in Beautiful María of my Soul that such a narrative device wouldn't have been an enormous stretch. The protagonist, María, is a man's bland idea of a beautiful woman; I never believed in her as a real person. Her great love affair with Nestor seems to be based mostly on the fact that they're both good looking and he has an enormous penis—and this sexist pap carries on for 300 pages.
The prose is also pretty terrible. Hijuelos seems to think that peppering his prose with italicised words in Spanish every other sentence is a good alternative to actually creating atmosphere and texture. Some words are not translatable into English, true, but Hijuelos delights in things like having his characters say "Muy bien. Very good," when they are ostensibly speaking Spanish all the time.
The final straw was the ending, in which the author inserts himself as a character (polite and modest and self-effacing!) who helps to tie up the last few strands of the narrative. It read as obnoxious. Really, really not recommended.
The prose is also pretty terrible. Hijuelos seems to think that peppering his prose with italicised words in Spanish every other sentence is a good alternative to actually creating atmosphere and texture. Some words are not translatable into English, true, but Hijuelos delights in things like having his characters say "Muy bien. Very good," when they are ostensibly speaking Spanish all the time.
The final straw was the ending, in which the author inserts himself as a character (polite and modest and self-effacing!) who helps to tie up the last few strands of the narrative. It read as obnoxious. Really, really not recommended.
lazygal's review against another edition
2.0
This is historical fiction and a sequel to The Mambo Kings, telling the story of the Maria behind the Castillo's bolero "Beautiful Maria of My Soul". The problem for me was, I didn't care. Perhaps by design, Maria is a cold character - beautiful, at first naive, and just, well, not a character I related to at all. Her choices, her life, her problems, nothing made me really care about her.
Perhaps if I'd read The Mambo Kings I'd feel differently but since I didn't read it...
ARC provided by publisher.
Perhaps if I'd read The Mambo Kings I'd feel differently but since I didn't read it...
ARC provided by publisher.
bobbo49's review against another edition
3.0
Good but not great, this companion to Mambo Kings - telling the story from the point of view of Maria, Nestor's great love in Cuba - is well written but not as compelling as the first book. A little bit over the top emphasis on sexual encounters, which ultimately doesn't add enough to the story to justify the excess. Hijuelos takes an interesting tack toward the end, bringing himself and the Mambo Kings book and movie into the story.
moirab's review against another edition
2.0
Beautiful languange but the story moved at a snail's pace.
lvv205's review against another edition
4.0
I really liked this book until the end where the author weirdly inserted himself into the story.
dozenthhoney's review against another edition
2.0
I couldn't finish this. I remember Maria being a pretty shallow, one-dimensional character in The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love and this book didn't fill her out or make her any more likable for me.
poojapillai's review
1.0
Abandoned this book less than halfway through, after struggling with it for months. The unrelenting male gaze fixated on the protagonist's breasts and buttocks, the glorification of obviously stalker behaviour as some kind of pure, true love, the bewildering & gratuitous use of Spanish words in lines of dialogue (because obviously in the universe of this books the characters - all Cubans in Havana - are speaking to each other in Spanish, even if we're reading them in English) - all very, very nauseating.
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