Customer Reviews

I Gave You All I Had

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Cuca Martinez is the youngest child in a brood of five, born in pre-revolutionary Cuba to a flighty, aspiring actress and a Chinese enthusiast of New World riches upon whom fortune has consistently failed to smile. At the age of ten, Cuca is sent to live with her grandmother; at sixteen she heads for Havana in search of work. Pre-revolutionary Havana is a sultry capital of music and seduction where life is lived to the percussive beat of the mambo and rhumba, and every event comes with a sensual invitation. It is also where two other girls introduce Cuca into the sweet mischief of nighttime Havana where she meets Juan who will be the love of her live -- and then disappear for eight years. On the eve of the Revolution Juan returns and Cuca beliefs her dreams are finally to be realized. But the political climate and Juan's shady dealings force him into hasty exile in America. So Cuca waits in Cuba for the realization of promised dreams, all the while struggles, along with her friends, to survive through improvisation, scavenging, and conversation. Enthusiastically recommended reading, I Gave You All I Had is a studied, original, literate novel that is humorous, lively, original, heartbreaking, and life affirming.

A truly facinating book! It is two love stories at the same time. One is the main character's (Cuca's) love for the first man she ever kissed. This love story goes on from their first meeting in the late 1950s to their last meeting in the mid-1990s. The second is the author's love for Havana, and her disappointment in the Castro regime. This love story develops from a colourful picture of the open and international Havana of the 1950s into a depressingly accurate description of today's isolated communist Havana, where food, clothes and other essentials are luxury goods available only for the newly rich (whether party elite or people working in the dollar economy). Both these themes are comunicated in a beautiful, quick, and direct language that makes the reader feel present in Havana. You can actually smell the dirt, hear the ocean, breathe the air and feel the music. I'd certainly recommend it to all, especially if you are either intersted in Cuba or the Latin American style of writing - or both!

It's a wonderful satire, dripping sensuality and wit. The description of Havana's sizzling nightlife before the revolution is fantastic, you will actually feel you're partying with the characters, and just for the way Cuquita, the main character, makes fun of herself (and practically everyone else, including you-know-who) and her delusions with a man that rarely gives her a thought, I can almost forgive her stupidity in waiting for him for thirty years. The ending depressed me, though. Tip: if you can, read it in its original language.

I also was lost in the middle of a plot with so many inconsistencies. This writer simply does not know how to narrate a simple story. Besides, there are historical errors alongside the plot. Shameful!

This is the second book by this author I read. Here I encountered the same problems I found in the other book. She begins a story, but obviously never knows how to finish it nor what to do with her characters. Besides, there is a lot of inconsistencies in both plots. I don't think she even knows how to write. I won't read any more of her books. It is a waste of time and money. I recommend instead another Cuban author: Antonio Orlando Rodriguez: "The Last Masquerade"

Nostalgia and sarcasm, illusion and reality, eternal romance and coarse sex, Havana of boleros - Havana of institutional mediocrity. Zoe Valdes stands them side by side and mixes them together in the tale of Cuca Martinez and the love of her life. To describe this book is to describe classical music or art. It is a book that is felt by both body and soul. Bravo.

I must disagree with most of the others' comments about this book. I did not find it to be a good read for me. I found it to be very difficult. The style of writing was quite flighty & I often got lost. It felt to me as though the writer was trying too hard - Plain and simple. I didn't bond with the development of the characters at all. I am a huge book fan, and this just doesn't cut it. I suggest reading "Caramelo" instead, by Sandra Cisneros.

Ms. Valdes writes about the Cuban despair better than any writer around. Her writing is remarkable, her sentences just leap off the page.

I do agreee with over reviewers who say the beginning is fantastic and then it slowly peters out. After a few days of thinking about it, I believe this is intentional. Her energetic style (at the beginning) coincides with the optimism many Cubans felt at the beginning of the revolution. Her writing becomes flat, sad, and full of dull rage as her characters live out the failed promises of the revolution.

Perhaps my interpretation is too fanciful, but I can't get this story out of my head nonetheless. I don't recommend this book to people who don't have a sense of modern Cuban culture or history, I think those readers will be lost. It's an great example, however, of "exile" literature.

I have to agree with the other readers. This book became confusing at times and I didn't understand the significance of the recipes. I found myself skipping through a few pages just so I could finish the book. I wished she would have had better transitions throughout the book. Great story that could have been told better!

I easily became confused due to the author's abrupt change of narrator from chapter to chapter. Although the storyline was interesting, I did not enjoy the interrupting recipes and such. I also became frustrated with the endless talk of XXL. I did not understand the importance of him in the book. It was difficult reading. I suggest you try for yourself and if anybody understands the underlying meaning of this book PLEASE email Me! I would love to know.