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A review by pushingdessy
The Waves Take You Home by María Alejandra Barrios Vélez
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I received this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
So… this book was very frustrating to me. But let’s start from the beginning: 18-year-old Violeta Sanoguera prepares to leave her home in Barranquilla, Colombia, broken-hearted, to go to college in the US, following her grandmother’s wishes.
Ten years later, when her strict but beloved grandmother passes away, Violeta goes back home for the funeral and decides to stay and try to save the family’s restaurant from bankruptcy with the help of her mother and Anton, her friend and grandmother’s protegé. But home brings up a lot of feelings for Vi, in particular for the boy whose proposal she rejected: Rafa. Problem is, both of them have moved on with other partners… or have they?
I liked the main plot of Vi wanting to save the restaurant and in the process finding out more about her grandmother, repairing family bonds, and discovering more about herself. But, frankly, I found that the addition of her grandmother’s *ghost* cheapened the story unnecessarily. So did the love triangle.
I understand that Vi and Rafa are ~star-crossed lovers~, but they were 18, and Vi is shown to be in a healthy relationship with someone who met her as an adult. Yet the moment she steps in Barranquilla, Rafa is all she can think about. I felt like the author didn’t want to paint Vi’s current partner as a bad guy, but then she also had to make him less appealing somehow, but did so in ways I just didn’t buy. For example, in one conversation, Liam is 100% behind Vi’s decision to save the restaurant, he believes she can do it… until somehow *she* voices the idea that he doesn’t think she can do it, and then it’s like “gotcha! I think you’re crazy and you won’t do it”. Or he sees the ghost and believes is a ghost, until Vi is like “ay he doesn’t believe in ghosts!” and then he doesn’t. Suddenly he “doesn’t understand her”… but Rafa does? The guy who doesn’t know her as an adult?
I just… this was an insane plot line done badly for me. It would have worked better if Vi and Rafa had reconnected as friends and then slowly realized that they also clicked as adults, but instead it felt like two people who’d never been able to move on and clung to a high school relationship. And it muddied Vi’s intentions of going back to Colombia.
I also took issue with this: most of the story is set in Colombia, a Spanish-speaking country, and features many characters who are presumably speaking in Spanish to each other, translated to English for the benefit of the book’s audience. Except… the dialogue is actually done in Spanglish, *heavily*. I love it when authors include some of their native language in their books, but this was a lot, it made no logical sense, and it didn’t have consistent rules for when to use Spanish and when to include a translation. Vi was bilingual; every other character she spoke to while in Colombia was not. I underlined so many examples of why this was done so poorly, so here are some:
“Ni sé. I don’t think I’m made para este calor anymore.” - The character is bilingual but talking to a native Spanish-speaker who isn’t bilingual, and they’re in Colombia.
”In Colombia, we took care of our muertos quickly.” - Muertos isn’t really a word that has reason to be in its native language.
”I could still hear Mami: Por qué couldn’t I stay for more than two weeks? Was I alérgica to Barranquilla?” - See examples 1 and 2 above.
”'Claro. Y quién más?' Who else? he said” - It repeats the sentence in English here and in a few other places even when it’s unnecessary, and not in other places where the translation might not be as clear.
I’m a native Spanish-speaker and this lack of logic was off-putting to me. I also thought it could have done with more edits, as parts of it felt repetitive, some *were* actual repeated facts that didn’t need to be, and there were issues with the timelines - at one point, Vi is 18 when Rafa is 21, but then it says they’re the same age; Vi’s mother remarried ten years ago, but Vi was 13 when she was actually 18.
Overall, I just couldn’t connect with the story or the characters because those things bugged me too much, and I considered DNF’ing several times - even though the main premise was interesting.
So… this book was very frustrating to me. But let’s start from the beginning: 18-year-old Violeta Sanoguera prepares to leave her home in Barranquilla, Colombia, broken-hearted, to go to college in the US, following her grandmother’s wishes.
Ten years later, when her strict but beloved grandmother passes away, Violeta goes back home for the funeral and decides to stay and try to save the family’s restaurant from bankruptcy with the help of her mother and Anton, her friend and grandmother’s protegé. But home brings up a lot of feelings for Vi, in particular for the boy whose proposal she rejected: Rafa. Problem is, both of them have moved on with other partners… or have they?
I liked the main plot of Vi wanting to save the restaurant and in the process finding out more about her grandmother, repairing family bonds, and discovering more about herself. But, frankly, I found that the addition of her grandmother’s *ghost* cheapened the story unnecessarily. So did the love triangle.
I understand that Vi and Rafa are ~star-crossed lovers~, but they were 18, and Vi is shown to be in a healthy relationship with someone who met her as an adult. Yet the moment she steps in Barranquilla, Rafa is all she can think about. I felt like the author didn’t want to paint Vi’s current partner as a bad guy, but then she also had to make him less appealing somehow, but did so in ways I just didn’t buy. For example, in one conversation, Liam is 100% behind Vi’s decision to save the restaurant, he believes she can do it… until somehow *she* voices the idea that he doesn’t think she can do it, and then it’s like “gotcha! I think you’re crazy and you won’t do it”. Or he sees the ghost and believes is a ghost, until Vi is like “ay he doesn’t believe in ghosts!” and then he doesn’t. Suddenly he “doesn’t understand her”… but Rafa does? The guy who doesn’t know her as an adult?
I just… this was an insane plot line done badly for me. It would have worked better if Vi and Rafa had reconnected as friends and then slowly realized that they also clicked as adults, but instead it felt like two people who’d never been able to move on and clung to a high school relationship. And it muddied Vi’s intentions of going back to Colombia.
I also took issue with this: most of the story is set in Colombia, a Spanish-speaking country, and features many characters who are presumably speaking in Spanish to each other, translated to English for the benefit of the book’s audience. Except… the dialogue is actually done in Spanglish, *heavily*. I love it when authors include some of their native language in their books, but this was a lot, it made no logical sense, and it didn’t have consistent rules for when to use Spanish and when to include a translation. Vi was bilingual; every other character she spoke to while in Colombia was not. I underlined so many examples of why this was done so poorly, so here are some:
“Ni sé. I don’t think I’m made para este calor anymore.” - The character is bilingual but talking to a native Spanish-speaker who isn’t bilingual, and they’re in Colombia.
”In Colombia, we took care of our muertos quickly.” - Muertos isn’t really a word that has reason to be in its native language.
”I could still hear Mami: Por qué couldn’t I stay for more than two weeks? Was I alérgica to Barranquilla?” - See examples 1 and 2 above.
”'Claro. Y quién más?' Who else? he said” - It repeats the sentence in English here and in a few other places even when it’s unnecessary, and not in other places where the translation might not be as clear.
I’m a native Spanish-speaker and this lack of logic was off-putting to me. I also thought it could have done with more edits, as parts of it felt repetitive, some *were* actual repeated facts that didn’t need to be, and there were issues with the timelines - at one point, Vi is 18 when Rafa is 21, but then it says they’re the same age; Vi’s mother remarried ten years ago, but Vi was 13 when she was actually 18.
Overall, I just couldn’t connect with the story or the characters because those things bugged me too much, and I considered DNF’ing several times - even though the main premise was interesting.