I picked up this novel, impressed by the reviews it had gotten and how the author was from Spain. It immediately looked like it had promise, BUT I felt the whole seamstress angle could get old fast because how could a seamstress really get to involved in a war or how could the author make that job to interesting!?
I wasn’t excited to start reading about how her hands hurt, how she sat in one place all day long as important events just went right by her……. So many books use that angle and the seamstress works in a factory or something similar and their effect on the war doesn’t go past nondescript, random, everyday soldiers. Therefore the overall feel of the war is kind of lost and the seamstress’s impact is minimal at best.
This was not the case AT ALL!!
From the first page to the last Maria Duenas demonstrates her prowess of writing. Adjectives work for her like she owns them. She never repeats descriptions or uses the same adjectives for the same situations. Many authors fall into their distinct and overly used phrases, ESPECIALLY if the author is discussing similar situations, like parties or dresses throughout their book, they often describe them the same way without expanding into a different range of words so their scenes often feel the same and the reader is left with a small world to imagine. Duenas transcends that bad habit of authors! She describes everything with its own flavor, texture and style. The reader can immediately tell the difference between the German women, the Morroccan streets, the French clothes. Duenas’ care and attention to her descriptions allows her books to encompasses these extremely different cultures without losing their distinct flares.
This attention to detail extends to her characters. She has such a wide range of personalities in her novel! Not only does her main character develop and change throughout, but she moves past the pitfall of many authors where they fall in love with their own creation of their main character and can’t describe or develop their other characters nearly as well. She is able to give attention to her main character, Sira, but does so through action not description. Duenas does not spend endless amounts of pages describing each characters personalities, or their likes and dislikes, she REVEALS it through conversations, through decisions made by the characters. This way the reader learns about the characters on their own, WITHOUT having all the answers given to them by the author. Therefore the reader can come up with their personal opinions and thoughts about the characters and their decisions.
I believe this is the reason why Duenas’ novel has become so popular. She gives the reader a change to learn how war changes the characters. Duenas doesn’t spell out as to why and how everything effected and changed people, she just shows it. A powerful example of this is when Ignacio confronts Sira later on in her apartment. Before this time Ignacio hadn’t spoke much and was mostly forgotten in the novel, but he comes to personify what has happened over time to Sira’s childhood and to the people she used to know due to war. He is hateful, poor, without love and angry. Those few pages where Ignacio speaks with such force to Sira, was more memorable then sad descriptions of children, garbage, etc that authors often use to describe how the war changed people. Duenas didn’t need these lengthy descriptions of how the war changed the landscape. Instead she showed how it changed hearts, minds and the very people all in one conversation. Powerful.
Finally Sira was a pleasure to follow as she grew and changed. She made both good and bad decisions and Duenas never showed a sort of author’s protection for her. Duenas was able to create people to help Sira, to move her along instead of having unrealistic expectations for Sira. Without any education it is unlikely Sira would have been able to accomplish what she did, so her journey made sense with the help she received. She simply allowed Sira to blossom into the intelligent beautiful spy by way of the PLOT instead of just writing, ‘she became the best spy’.
Duenas is more than an author, or a simple storyteller, she captured a moment like a photographer. This novel was beautiful, realistic, and felt like I was there, learning along with the characters. AMAZING!
- Goodreads rating – 4.16
- REVIEW – Bria