A review by sarahweyand
Solito by Javier Zamora

adventurous challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.5

I am so grateful for the literary award Storygraph challenge I created, because it introduces me to wonderful books like this that I might not have picked up otherwise. This is a beautifully written, insightful, heartbreaking memoir. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the author, and I think it adds a lot to the experience; I would highly recommend. I seriously couldn't tell if this book was written in verse or prose, especially with Zamora's narration. I loved it.

This is certainly a long story, and parts of it felt a little slow, but you can't really critique how someone's real life played out, pacing-wise. The high-stakes moments were tense and elicited physical reactions from me, which I always commend when a book is able to do so. I loved the inclusions of so much Spanish, and I thought the choice to tell the narrative from the POV of Zamora as a child with no input from his adult self really enhanced the plot.

This is a wonderful book. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

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