Joana Gomes Gomes itibaren Pontecabras, Pontevedra, İspanya itibaren Pontecabras, Pontevedra, İspanya

This was just ok for me. With all the stands full of this book and the beautiful coloring on the jacket, I expected more. Perhaps this is one of those young adult books that is much better read when you are young adult? The concept was interesting (half picture book half written story). Drawings were nice but the breakup made this a hardcover book over 500 pages and with that much heft, I expected more of a storyline and I guess it was lacking in the magical element I was expecting...

so far this has been disappointing. It seems very juvenile and all the dialog is trite and unreal. It feels like something I would've written in grade school or jr. high. the story isn't very interesting and not at all believable yet. the characters aren't exactly lovable, they aren't unlikeable, but I'm not fond of them yet. They seem very 2 dimensional. I usually feel quite compelled to get into & finish a book when I start, but I started this one on Friday and have only picked it up again once since then. Don't really care about what happens. Maybe this will be one of the rare times I don't finish a book. We'll see.... on pg 145 now. The story has gotten more interesting now that they're all starving and beginning to fight the Brits. The characters are still undeveloped and I don't feel an attachment to them yet. One frustrating thing the author does is totally skip details. She'll rev you up about some big thing that is going to happen, and then just say, "it happened' without describing it. The horse race probably had the best description of anything that has gone on so far and it has covered 7 years in the book. I think the horse race took 2 pages. She seems to drag out unimportant, boring things like get -togethers and parties, and skim over exciting and important things like fights, protests, starvation, relationships etc. The book started to get more exciting and devastating and I ended up really liking it. I especially liked that it was based on history, a true family, a real woman and her progeny. I think that's my favorite part about the whole thing. Makes me want to write similar books about my own ancestors. The amazing, horrible things they went through, the strength and courage, the resiliency and gratitude they showed. We could learn so much from them. lately I've felt bad that I've had to feed my kids Ramen noodles every day for lunch because we've been going through 'hard' times. These people went 3 years living on bark and grass and anything they could find starving all the while, being pregnant, trying to nurse etc. When have any of us actually had to go barefoot through any season, especially winter! It was an inspiring story. The thing that stood out to me was that their lives and deaths were not wasted because of the family line that continued on.