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nathuffman97 's review for:
Reputations
by Juan Gabriel Vásquez
Clever and sharp, this novella is short but impactful. Vasquez has lots of interesting things to say about memory, power, and public perception. The prose is powerful and the book is engrossing even though not much happens. The weight of the story and complexity of the prose makes you read it slowly, so it feels longer than its 193 pages. The only thing that rubs me the wrong way is that essentially this is a story about a young girl's sexual assault that comes back to haunt her in adulthood, but the book isn't really about her at all. Samanta is just a vehicle for Mallarino's character development-- her appearance forces him to think about his life and his impact, but her own thoughts and feelings about the whole thing are barely considered. Even the parts about going to see the widow are obviously more about Mallarino and his feelings than Samanta and hers. It feels pretty gross to use sexual assault as the impetus for someone else's character development .