Reviews for Vecindarios excentricos (Eccentric Neighborhoods)

The average rating for Vecindarios excentricos (Eccentric Neighborhoods) based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-06-12 00:00:00 Dan Durant Vecindarios Exéntricos creates a colorful family saga as a way to explore the modern political and social history of Puerto Rico. This a story of two prominent Puerto Rican families living in the first half of the XIX century during the sugarcane aristocracy's last days. The principal narrator, Elvira Vernet, describes three generations of her forbears. On her mother's side (Clarissa Rivas de Santillana), landed gentry of the Central La Plata; on her father's side (Aurelio Vernet), powerful, politically ambitious builders who flourished during the 1940s when the U.S.A. began to pour federal money into housing and municipal projects. Ferré spends too much of the middle of the novel introducing new characters and subplots. However, she prunes the sprawl in the final section, which focuses on Elvira's love-hate relationship with her family's past. It is a novel where the stories of men and women whose loves and losses coincided with the disappearance of the island's colonial society and with the birth of a class of newly rich people, unfold in a range of splendid stories. This is a novel full of humor, nostalgia, and fateful irony. It is artfully told, carefully shaped, and sprinkled with bits of pure poetry. Throughout Vecindarios Exéntricos Ferré's voice is bright and vital. I give it 5 stars out of 5.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-01-21 00:00:00 Jeremy Cook Disfruté la narración de la novela y su forma de llevar al lector a través de diferentes momentos históricos, desde el punto de vista de las familias poderosas y ricas de la época. Sin embargo, no puedo superar el hecho de que el editor de la obra no haya realizado bien su trabajo, ya que hay una cantidad exhorbitante de errores ortográficos y de confusión de nombres, que no fueron corregidos. Además, me parece un poco perturbador que se note cuán privilegiada es la voz narrativa, y se refiera a posiciones de menor rango con cierto desprecio, es algo que comienza a notarse luego de haber leído la obra varias veces.