This week I'd like to welcome back Sharon from Sharon's Garden of Book Reviews as this weeks Guest Reviewer!
******************** The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico — Sarah McCoy Shaye Areheart Books (Random House); $19.99 From Amazon.com...
"Maria Flores Ortiz-Santiago, known to her family and friends as Verdita, has spent 11 happy years in her peaceful Puerto Rico neighborhood. One night, she witnesses her parents making love, and her world irrevocably changes. She cannot look her mother in the eye after seeing her in such an exposed position. It takes months, a botched bleached-blond hairdo, and her mother's near death in childbirth before Verdita begins to understand her parents' love for one another and for her. The book is ripe with the lush island's landscape, culture, and foods, as well as the political upheaval of the 1960s. Verdita's experience, though, is universal, as she must reconcile both the passion she witnesses and the changes in her own body with a child's perspective of the world."
Coming of age is difficult in any culture. But for 11-year old Verdita, life in the slow-paced Puerto Rican mountain village where she grew up is deadly dull. As Puerto Rico struggled internally with independence and statehood issues, Verdita struggles with her own disappointments and heartaches. She dreams of excitement, glamour and absolutely anything American, but in the turbulent year of 1961, dreams could not always come true easily.
In Sarah McCoy’s debut novel, “The Time It Snowed In Puerto Rico,” she takes her readers on a journey to the verdant tropical island where attitudes and conditions are as turbulent as the oceans that surround it. Through McCoy’s magical use of words you can almost feel the humidity, taste the sweet coconut milk and hear the call of the native birds.
Verdita’s story is fraught with the emotional ups and downs of a pre-teenaged girl. After accidentally witnessing her parents making love on the living room couch, Verdita is dismayed to learn her mother is pregnant. She fervently prays that the baby is not a boy who would take her father’s attention away, but she also doesn’t want a sister, who might be prettier than she is.
Verdita adores Elvis Presley, desperately wants her hair to be blond, experiences a romantic crush, and feels the thrill of disobeying her parents for the first time. Typical teenage rebellion, yet there lies a gentleness in Verdita that cherishes her family, wants to be a good girl, and loves her country. But there is something more out there that she wants, she just doesn’t know what it is yet. Sarah McCoy delivers a brilliant coming-of-age novel that will appeal to both adults and young adult readers. Being part Puerto-Rican herself, McCoy drenched herself in the atmosphere and culture of her mother’s homeland, and the result is a rich, satisfying novel that is fascinating to read.
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Thank you so much Sharon for such an awesome review! Sounds like an AWESOME book! Check out Sharon's original review. Make sure to stop by and share some Book Love with Sharon too! What an awesome lady she is!