Review: The Spanish Love Deception

The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's a funny, enjoyable romantic comedy - it's not what I understood to be romance novel at all, it really reads like a romcom, at least for most of it. The "sexy parts" start only at about 75% of the way (that's where the drama also starts). I really liked it - I devoured it in just a few days, way faster than any other book I have read recently!

The protagonist and narrator of the story is Catalina (Lina to her friends), a Spanish woman who is the maid of honor for the upcoming wedding of her sister, back in her hometown in Spain; where her Ex is the best man. She is freaking out that she has no one to go with her, and is running out of time. Enter Aaron, her aloof and inimical colleague, offering to be her date for the wedding. Shenanigans ensue.

Aaron characterization is a bit weird. He speaks very little, and when he does, it's usually a grunt, or at most 1 or 2 words. He never explains anything, he never just comes out and says what he wants. Lina calls him Mr. Robot, and that seems to fit, at least for the first half of the book; but he starts to be more human and communicative in the second half. This is typical romance fare - at least one of the protagonists is usually terrible at communication, which causes conflict.

Although his characterization is weird, one thing that jumped at me was how the source of "conflict" in the story is actually *realistic*! In general, this type of story always rely on miscommunication or coincidences or accidents to give it a plot. In this case, the conflict is because the Catalina and Aaron are inimical *at work*. (view spoiler)[ Since she is the narrator, we only get her side of the story; how he humiliated her in her early days at work, and he is in her black list, and they are constantly bickering. Except that as we read, it start dawning on me that maybe she was imagining slights, and projecting her dislike of him to his actions. No matter how nice Aaron is to her, she always takes it the wrong way; she flips the actions on their heads, assuming bad intentions. She simply cannot accept that he is being nice to her! But unlike in other romcoms, this is not maddening! It actually makes sense - that's exactly how a lot of workplace conflict arise! People have "archnemesis" and "feuds" at work over nothing! Just a series of small slights that keep propelling themselves and compounding over time! And most of the time it's all imagined - one person just thinks the other person hates them, then retaliate, then the other person gets annoyed, then retaliates, and so on, on a completely made up vicious cycle. So yeah, I can totally see conflict like this happening in real life! (hide spoiler)]

Another thing that struck me is how one-sided it is on the "sexy" part too: it's very female centric, with many and long descriptions of Aaron, and almost nothing on Lina. He is described very well, physically, emotionally, psychologically, mannerisms, expressions; on the other hand, I came out of the story without a good sense about Lina, except for how she talks. That's really the only characterization we have of her. The book goes to great lengths to show how great Aaron is, and how good of a person and a partner he is. Again, we don't have much on Lina. We know she is funny from the dialogue, and that she is smart because she couldn’t have her job if she wasn't, but that doesn't say much. In which way is she smart? How does she think? It's like if someone just described the main character as beautiful and left it at that. And incidentally, what does she look like? Other than the extremely generic "typical Spanish woman" we are told at the start?

The book should also be commended for two - what do I call them, "technical"? - achievements.

First, it's always annoying in romcoms (in movies and TVs) when the characters seem to be living beyond their means - they are a barista but have a swanky apartment in Manhattan! They have nice clothes, go out all the time, have fancy dates! How do they have the money? But in this book, it almost seems like it goes the other way. The protagonist is a high level engineer in a big tech consulting company, a team leader, near the top of the org chart - someone who presumably makes a lot of money! But she has a cramped studio apartment in Brooklyn, takes public transport, has trouble finding nice clothes, works like crazy, worries about money constantly. It's either spot on, or even exaggerated in the opposite direction!

Second, the action takes place over a long period of time - *because* people are actually busy working! In a lot of rom-coms, it's weird how much time people spend in the romance part, going out, hanging out, making plans and schemes - and a very reasonable reaction by any reader/watcher should be" "who has the time for *that*?!"; "don't these people have to *work*?!". But in this book, the people do work! Weeks go by between "scenes" (very explicitly), because people are too busy with work and getting on with their lives. Yes, they will have schemes and shenanigans and hang out, but at a more reasonable rate. That part actually makes sense.

A note about the narration: I liked it! The narrator was female, which is an obvious choice for a book narrated by a female protagonist. Although her “male voice” was wholly unsuitable for Aaron’s character, making for a confusing characterization at times, I still wouldn’t change it, since everything is supposed to be filtered through Lina’s perception, so the voice works. Finally, her voice and accent when she spoke Spanish was really great!

View all my reviews

Review: The Bird King

The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book takes place around the time of the fall of Granada, Spain, the last emirate in the Iberian peninsula, in 1492; and it tells the story of Fatima, one of the Sultan's concubines, and of Hassan, the royal mapmaker with magical abilities, as they flee Granada to escape the incoming Spanish Inquisition.

I listened to the audiobook version of this book, and normally I wouldn't make a big deal of that, but in this case that forces me to address a big problem with it: the narration is very slow, kind of like a drawl, oscillating between languid and downright sleepy, making the book seem slower and boring. All the characters sounded wrong - her voice work for the protagonist (Fatima) didn't fit with the character at all! I had to listen at higher speed (at least 1.1x) so it wouldn't be so tedious.

The terrible narration makes it very difficult not to find the book slow and boring. It doesn't help that the plot is actually slow too. Most of the book concerns the escape of Fatima and Hassan from the Alhambra (the royal palace complex in Granada) after the arrival of the Castilian representatives, from Granada to the coast, over a period of 3 days. That is, the book really drags out the description of the escape of a fairly short distance (a couple of hours drive today) in a fairly short time. That's it, that's most of the book. And despite being slow, I actually thought it should have taken its time being a little more descriptive at the start, describe the places and people more, taking time to set the stage better. The narration is mostly action and dialogue, except that it's trivial action and boring dialogue. The characterization work was also extremely weird, it was difficult to understand the people and their motivations, who they were, what they wanted. On the other hand, the characters (with the exception of Fatima) all seemed to have a big sense of history, as if they already knew what was going to happen, and kept reflecting on it constantly. It was annoying, breaking with the realism of people. The ending is fantastical, in the "fantasy"-related meaning of the word; but the book is too mysterious and precious about it.

Despite these flaws, the story on the whole was interesting, with a cool setting. In fact, I must confess that this last point was what I liked most - because I actually have been to Granada, and I liked recognizing the places in the stories, because it's still all there, the Alhambra, the Nasrid palaces, the gardens - more than 500 hundred years later! I also liked that the story weaved some real fables and myths in, which I always prefer to wholly made-up fantasy worlds. I also liked the relationship between Fatima and Hassan, even if I didn't like their dynamic towards the end.


View all my reviews