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A review by crashderby
When We Left Cuba by Chanel Cleeton
2.0
Okay, two stars might be harsh, but I have given quite a few better books a three star so two it is. I finished it, and I really didn't care to. I checked for the "time left" on my audible three times. I chose this book (audible) because I liked Next Year in Havana well enough to want to continue the story. I had already downloaded it when I realized it wasn't a continuation, but a side story of one of the other sisters. I thought, no big deal - she seemed interesting enough.
I enjoyed the very basics of the story line. I can't say I really enjoyed it as a love story because I don't really think it was a love story. She falls in love, and questions love for another, but then handles them both in a very high-school hoity-toity fashion. I did not need to hear three thousand four hundred and thirty seven times that she was an independent woman and felt oppressed. No part of the story spelled out her highly hinted at heart-breaker attitude.
Her revenge plot was also half-assed. The whole book was in waiting for what ended up being a five minute meeting that nixed the whole build-up of a proper revenge. And then, we didn't even get a real story as to if there was a real person to blame.. although it felt like there was an answer there waiting to be explored, and then was ignored.
And by golly. My heart strings were pulled all over the place for Cuba in Next Year in Havana. Growing up in the 90s, I knew of Cuba and the very little we were taught in schools, but this book gave a different side that made me want to do a research paper and expand my knowledge of the time frame and the area. This book, however, annoyed me. It just all felt so hypocritical. And by the end, I was wanting to yell through to the main character to shut up about America. Everything was just on repeat, over and over. It was a very political book, but just personal opinions and feelings. Very little that felt like true insight. Those parts were skimmed over.
Things were built up but never followed through on throughout the whole book. She duplicated an entire mini paragraph and I didn't realize it - Mr. Dwyer (sp?) talking to her when she was awaiting her plane to Spain, and then again at the end when he was proposing to her his ideas for Europe. Same exact wording. The author must have jotted it down as a conversational thing to be included and then forgot she had already included it. And Edwardo being on the phone at the end, but then she is back with Nick? I dismissed it as I didn't care anyway at that point, but just all seemed so messy. Or maybe I missed something because I was so over it.
Beatrice (sp?) had so much potential. SO much. I'd love for another author to take her and tell me her stories from a less whiney perspective - give her that true independent woman feeling.. one who takes her lemons and makes lemonade then pours it down her antagonists shirt fronts. And leaves out the constant bashing of the USA. And doesn't spend her whole life blaming everything that happens to her on the idea that its only bc she's a woman. I get it - it might be - but DO something about it and shut up.
Anyway. Annoyed me enough to make me want to write a review, even tho its been a while since I cared enough to put more than a couple sentences.
I enjoyed the very basics of the story line. I can't say I really enjoyed it as a love story because I don't really think it was a love story. She falls in love, and questions love for another, but then handles them both in a very high-school hoity-toity fashion. I did not need to hear three thousand four hundred and thirty seven times that she was an independent woman and felt oppressed. No part of the story spelled out her highly hinted at heart-breaker attitude.
Her revenge plot was also half-assed. The whole book was in waiting for what ended up being a five minute meeting that nixed the whole build-up of a proper revenge. And then, we didn't even get a real story as to if there was a real person to blame.. although it felt like there was an answer there waiting to be explored, and then was ignored.
And by golly. My heart strings were pulled all over the place for Cuba in Next Year in Havana. Growing up in the 90s, I knew of Cuba and the very little we were taught in schools, but this book gave a different side that made me want to do a research paper and expand my knowledge of the time frame and the area. This book, however, annoyed me. It just all felt so hypocritical. And by the end, I was wanting to yell through to the main character to shut up about America. Everything was just on repeat, over and over. It was a very political book, but just personal opinions and feelings. Very little that felt like true insight. Those parts were skimmed over.
Things were built up but never followed through on throughout the whole book. She duplicated an entire mini paragraph and I didn't realize it - Mr. Dwyer (sp?) talking to her when she was awaiting her plane to Spain, and then again at the end when he was proposing to her his ideas for Europe. Same exact wording. The author must have jotted it down as a conversational thing to be included and then forgot she had already included it. And Edwardo being on the phone at the end, but then she is back with Nick? I dismissed it as I didn't care anyway at that point, but just all seemed so messy. Or maybe I missed something because I was so over it.
Beatrice (sp?) had so much potential. SO much. I'd love for another author to take her and tell me her stories from a less whiney perspective - give her that true independent woman feeling.. one who takes her lemons and makes lemonade then pours it down her antagonists shirt fronts. And leaves out the constant bashing of the USA. And doesn't spend her whole life blaming everything that happens to her on the idea that its only bc she's a woman. I get it - it might be - but DO something about it and shut up.
Anyway. Annoyed me enough to make me want to write a review, even tho its been a while since I cared enough to put more than a couple sentences.