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Bosonoga Kraljica (2013)

by Ildefonso Falcones(Favorite Author)

3.85 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Laguna

review 1: Set in the backdrop of 18th Century Spain, Falcones paints a picture of two strong women, determined to live their lives as they see fit. More importantly, live them freely. Caridad is an African/Cuban slave, who has found herself free after her master dies unexpectedly on journey to Spain. This should be a joyous occurrence, that she is free. That, however, is not the case as she is left in a foreign country, without the means to survive. Taunted and mocked at by the local men, Caridad is not sure how she will overcome this supposed freedom and make a life for herself. She is taken in by the gypsy community and quickly befriends Milagros. The two women become close and all seems well for Caridad and the freedom she so rightly deserved. But, as fate would have it, the happ... moreiness doesn’t last long. The gypsy community is not as safe as Caridad thought.I don’t want to give too much away, but this book is hard to stomach. I poured over it for 2 weeks, and that had nothing to do with the page count. The crimes against women in general made me stop reading. I wanted to skim through those parts, but I knew that this was apart of the story and as much as it sickened me, I had to give in. If there ever was a book with too much detail, it is this one. I am always eager to jump into historical fiction. I can give the author kudos for the research on 18th-Century Spain and the lives of gypsy women in retrospect. I felt like this was too much information to pack into one book.The book itself is beautiful. The cover drew me in and once I got my hands on it, I loved it even more. Would I recommend this book? Yes. There’s so much history that people often times forget. It’s nice to read about the “facts” of historical events or acts that were of importance back then. People fear things they don’t understand. And I love how authors take those things and add in their own fictional characters to recall the history. If you love historical fiction, and aren’t afraid to read the hard things, I say read this book. It’s rather long and detailed but I can honestly say that I enjoyed having read it. The plot is interesting and so is the history behind it.*I received this book from Blogging For Books for this review*
review 2: NOTE: I WAS GIVEN A COPY OF THIS BOOK THROUGH NETGALLEY IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.I couldn't finish it....I stopped reading a few days ago even though I still had about 300 or so pages left to go. I tried, I really did...Initially, this book started out with elements of a great historical fiction read; an African slave coming to a new world with her master; the master dying en route to Spain leaving Caridad, a free woman but utterly alone in a strange place.... enter into the story a gypsy girl, Milagros and her grandfather, who is something of a legend among the gypsy people. They take this broken, black slave into their home and gypsy community and that's where the real story begins.The writing is descriptive and takes the reader to an area of Spain not commonly known....so I'm having a hard time understanding what it is about this book that I disliked to much. The book is lengthy and dark, in the sense that it is about poverty, struggle.... the outcome of most situations written about is bleak, even though the reader hopes for a glimpse of something good. Maybe someday I'll return to the novel and read through to the ending to find good things did happen. less

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