Reviews

Vanishing Maps by Cristina García

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sagittariusly_'s review against another edition

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too many characters to keep track of over audio alone. hopefully will pick up the physical copy soon.

kdmr's review

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emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

howard's review

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2.5

This really didn't work for me in any way. I didn't connect to the writing style and found many of the descriptions boring. I don't think we spent enough time with any of the characters. And I didn't particularly care for the plot either. I don't think this was horrible and it might even work really well for someone else, but I didn't enjoy it. There was also a bit of fatphobia in the descriptions that I didn't care for.

stitching_ghost's review against another edition

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4.0

Beautifully written and full of charm but I'm not sure I entirely got it (largely I felt like this book was smarter, better dressed than me and funnier than me if you know what I mean). I didn't know it was a follow up to another novel when I picked it up and I don't think it diminished my enjoyment.

There were more characters than I would usually prefer but Garcia managed to give the characters really unique voices so it wasn't too confusing for me.

There's a fair amount of lines in German and in Spanish so I'd recommend going with the print/kindle version if you're not conversational in both and you don't want to miss anything.

lisa_spencer's review against another edition

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Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

thatsoneforthebooks's review against another edition

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5.0

✨ Review ✨ Vanishing Maps by Cristina García

I read this WITHOUT realizing that it's a follow up book to Dreaming in Cuban (which I clearly hadn't read yet). That said, it was still an incredible book, and while reading Dreaming in Cuban first would have enriched my read probably, I still got so much out of this.

Vanishing Maps explores the Cuban diaspora through three generations of a Cuban family -- with a special focus on this third generation which is spread through Germany, Russia, and the U.S. (Miami and L.A.). It feels like García has crafted a web of family members made up of a series of one-way tickets as the characters have moved about.

There's something so incredible about the range of the character's identities and their connection to their cubanidad across this book -- from the family's matriarch's obsession with El Líder to the younger generation's contested relationships with Cuba and their elders -- we see such a range. My favorite character was Ivanito -- a part-time translator and adjunct professor and part-time drag queen. I'm not sure I've ever used the word zeitgeist but it seems appropriate here to describe what García has captured.

This definitely won't be a book for everyone -- there are a lot of characters, there's not necessarily a neat resolution, and within, chaos reigns. I found it such an incredible work of art that made me think about diaspora -- its traumas and its joys -- in new ways.

...off to go read Dreaming in Cuban!!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: literary fiction, historical fiction with touches of magical realism
Setting: Cuba, Miami, LA, Berlin, Russia, etc.
Pub Date: July 2023

Read this if you like:
⭕️ complicated family webs with lots of POV
⭕️ narratives of immigration and diaspora
⭕️ Cuba / Miami / Soviet / Eastern Europe topics

Thanks to Knopf and #netgalley for an advanced copies of this book!