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A review by jheher
The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
3.0
A family saga in two scenes over two days. Oh so close to four stars!
There's so much I loved about this book. The voice is genuine, I connected with Little Angel almost immediately and could see myself sitting next to him as he told this story. Many of the stories are funny - one made me guffaw out loud! Some of the stories are unexpectedly gentle and poignant. Urrea does a great job weaving so many characters into the two (!) days over which the story takes place.
But there were missteps and, for me, missing information that distracted me; sometimes a lot. There were places where characters just showed up unannounced, did their thing and then just disappeared. They often moved the plot along but their abrupt arrival confused me. Some of the storylines just seemed out of context. I really appreciated the family tree at the back of the paperback edition AND that it was pointed out to me before I started reading. I referred to it often. Maybe it should be at the front of the text? And, as a non-Spanish speaker, I would have loved translations of the Spanish. Even using Google there were phrases that didn't translate and I was left hanging.
This is definitely a 3.5-star book. Maybe even more. It's unequivocally a good read.
There's so much I loved about this book. The voice is genuine, I connected with Little Angel almost immediately and could see myself sitting next to him as he told this story. Many of the stories are funny - one made me guffaw out loud! Some of the stories are unexpectedly gentle and poignant. Urrea does a great job weaving so many characters into the two (!) days over which the story takes place.
But there were missteps and, for me, missing information that distracted me; sometimes a lot. There were places where characters just showed up unannounced, did their thing and then just disappeared. They often moved the plot along but their abrupt arrival confused me. Some of the storylines just seemed out of context. I really appreciated the family tree at the back of the paperback edition AND that it was pointed out to me before I started reading. I referred to it often. Maybe it should be at the front of the text? And, as a non-Spanish speaker, I would have loved translations of the Spanish. Even using Google there were phrases that didn't translate and I was left hanging.
This is definitely a 3.5-star book. Maybe even more. It's unequivocally a good read.