This was a touching and (mostly) interesting book with occasional difficult patches. The treatment of Jews in this time and place was appalling. Amalia found more acceptance among the Muslims of Granada than among the Christians she met in her travels throughout the Iberian Peninsula, before we even get to the Spanish Inquisition. Now it's a Monty Python punch line, but during its time it was a brutal purge that left families shattered and communities bereft. Amalia's "decision" at the end of the book is not really the point of the story. Instead it's about the people she's loved (and mostly lost), the series of decisions she's made before ever getting to Valencia, and all the places she's been along the way. A few of those places were familiar to me from a too-long-ago trip to Spain, but at the same time it was a jarring contrast between the beautiful scenery and architecture I remember and the ugly fear-mongering and discrimination that took place in the past.
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- Susanita (
bardhlul) wrote in 
50bookchallenge,
Susanita
bardhlul 50bookchallenge
Book 20 - The Mapmaker's Daughter by Laurel Corona
This was a touching and (mostly) interesting book with occasional difficult patches. The treatment of Jews in this time and place was appalling. Amalia found more acceptance among the Muslims of Granada than among the Christians she met in her travels throughout the Iberian Peninsula, before we even get to the Spanish Inquisition. Now it's a Monty Python punch line, but during its time it was a brutal purge that left families shattered and communities bereft. Amalia's "decision" at the end of the book is not really the point of the story. Instead it's about the people she's loved (and mostly lost), the series of decisions she's made before ever getting to Valencia, and all the places she's been along the way. A few of those places were familiar to me from a too-long-ago trip to Spain, but at the same time it was a jarring contrast between the beautiful scenery and architecture I remember and the ugly fear-mongering and discrimination that took place in the past.
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Book #14: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book opens with the heroine, Margaret Hale, being uprooted from her idyllic…
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Book 31 - 2019
Book 31: The Land Before Avocado: Journeys in a lost Australia by Richard Glover - 269 pages Description from bookdepository.co.uk: There's…
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Book #3: Human Acts by Han Kang
Human Acts by Han Kang My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book is set around the real-life Gwangju student uprising against South Korea's martial…
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