Eccentric Neighborhoods by Rosario Ferré

Eccentric Neighborhoods Reviews

• 
  Carmen María Pérez

  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.
  
• 
  Myron Lezak

  A glimpse into a Puero Rican past
  
  An eccentric but believable Puerto Rican family. The history of Puerto Rico recounted through honest but loving family stories is a very entertaining and compassionate read.
• 
  Jessica

  I couldn't figure out if Ferré wrote this book in English because there was no credit to a translator. It is an interesting book that tells the history of all the family members of the Vernet-Rivas de Santillana family. (Review written in 2001 - I don't remember the book.)
• 
  Deb

  A true sweeping account of a family's history, in Puerto Rico. Charming at times, plodding other times.
• 
  Cheryl

  4.5 stars. This is a wonderful story of family, culture, and Puerto Rico's history.
• 
  Al

  This book was fascinating to me. And I am not sure why. I loved the homey feel of it. It was the kind of book you want to curl up with on a wintry day; it was whimsical and exotic. It made you feel warm. I want to draw lines of comparison to Like Water for Chocolate, but this was WAY better. I like the personal, political and working struggles of these families.
  
  I did really like it, although I felt that the character transition was a little maddening at times. Tia this, and Tio that... it was sometimes harrowing to follow. I wish I spent more time studying the family tree in the beginning of the book.
  
  I truly did love the old photos at the beginning of each chapter. I developed a habit of studying the pictures before and after each of them. It was one of the most endearing parts of the book.
  
• 
  Cathy

  Such a tangle of family threads in this book that following it was often a challenge. Four generations on both sides of this narrator's life in Puerto Rico formed the basis of dozens of intertwined tales handed down from parent to child and over again.. Hard to know whose voice was before me on the page at times as sometimes the narrator's mother or grandfather would take over the story for paragraphs at a time. Full of the island's history beginning in the mid-1800s and carrying through to the 1970s.
• 
  Laura Planton

  This is the story of two Puerto Rican families. While there is no plot in the book we learn about these families through a series of stories about the members of each family. The families are involved in the sugar industry and later concrete. The role of women is also a part of the book. Both matriarchs emphasized the education of woman, one for the purpose of finding a good husband and the other for self sufficiency.
• 
  Meg

  Interesting story told from the point of view of the granddaughter of two important families living in Puerto Rico. Some of the names were the same, or very close, that it took my a little while to figure out who was who. Interesting look at the history of Puerto Rico, really, and what life is like there. Nicely written.
  
  *Read for the PopSugar Reading Challenge:
  
  #29: Book set where you've always wanted to visit. Clearly need to go to Puerto Rico now.
• 
  Angela

  one of those amazing books that let's you forget about your own life for awhile. Put yourself in someone else's shoes walk around the island. Live in their joy and heartbreak but doesn't make you wallow in drama. Facts are facts. Life isn't perfect and whether it be the turn of the century or 2013 I definitely appreciate a survivor. Whiners need not apply, people need to live.
• 
  Tzeittle

  It was pretty good. I liked how Ferre went back and forth weaving different aspects of both of her families to tell their story. The ending seemed thrown together to me, but it could also be that I was anxious to finish and read it a little faster without "savoring" it.
• 
  Meg Clayton

  novel,1st Edition
• 
  Kerry

  3.5 Interesting characters and lovely descriptions of place and people. A little slow.