A review by poojapillai
Beautiful Maria of My Soul by Oscar Hijuelos

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.