Cuba libre is what you would call a chicklit and as such probably not made for consumption by the other gender. As I was hiking in Capilla del Monte, it was raining and besided the book was one of the two books the hostel had ( in Dutch!) I decided to go against the first warning and read it. And because it’s set in Cuba and I like Cuba.

It’s basically a long stretched story about a girl not willing to confront the death of her sister a long time ago and with a real bunch of mental problems to say the least following a couple to Havana, to study Spanish and live differently.

It has lot’s of mentions to love, relations and babies in it. And about feelings too, long long pages of it. So to the authors credit I enjoyed reading this book. The characters are nice, it’s written pretty good and just an enjoyable fast read. If you can bound me to a book which has more than one reference in it about raising children then you’ve done a good job I’d gather.


Even The Republic sometimes takes time to read. In South-America reading in English involves reading books simply because they are lingering around the hostel or second-hand bookstore, not because The Republic actually wants to read them..