Customer Reviews

Peel My Love Like an Onion

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Carmen la Coja soars through her life like a bird with giant wings, refusing to relent in the face of incredible obstacles, and still manages to be brilliant and sexy and desired. In the Flamenco world, Carmen is a symbol of grace and beauty, of amazing passes and fluid movements, and as a part of this world, even though she is not "gitana" she delves into that world as if she is a native. A polio-crippled Mexican-American from Chicago, Carmen faces life with spunk and a fearless sense of fate that carries her through passionate love affairs with two dazzling Gypsy dancers whose own bond of filial honor results in her desertion and eventual reclamation, albeit after is is too late. That Carmen triumphs at last in the Flamenco world is a tribute to her luck as well as to her devotion and faithfulness to her old friends and family. That she struggles on despite physical debilities that would stymy many others brings her the success that she has long deserved, as well as the fulfillment of her dreams and longings for security and love. This is an exciting novel, full of love and lust, magic and mystique. A must read!!

What a lovely piece of writing by Castillo. As I started reading 'Peel my love'I couldn't leave before finishing it. The novel fluctuates between different feelings: pity for Carmen (the crippled heroine), sympathy, admiration. Castillo seems to emphasize that if one feels crippled it is one's soul that is crippled that keeps one motionless. It is not physical cripplness that only detains one's decisions. Cripplness within is much more dangerous. One's inertia might be caused by customs and traditions that obstruct one's capabilities.

From beginning to end, Carmen "La Coja" (the cripple) is a woman who is as loveable and insecure as your best friend. The author's skillful dialog is some of the best I've ever read. The wry humor and tongue-in-cheek observations made me laugh out loud. Carmen's mother who shouts on the phone when she talks long distance reminded me of my own mom. Carmen's mother has lived a hard working life, and now in her later years, God help the person who comes between her and her afternoon novelas.

Carmen fully plunges her passionate spirit into her lovers and into her dance. Polio and lack of education color her life, as does her beauty. The book plays the extremes: ecstacy and despair, devotion and revenge, health and illness, discipline and abandonment, Gypsy, Mexicana and Gringa.

The novel is deliciously laced with Gypsy music and folklore, Mexican family life, love, cooking, lovers, and of course dance. Like Hemmingway in "The Old Man and the Sea," the author uses a light, simple touch, natural dialog, and understated, narrative. It's a book to bring to bed... unless of course your lover is waiting.

This novel is a product of a mixed and multicultural writer. I'm European and for our culture American multiculturalism is becoming a model for openness, but at the same tgime for closure. Carmen could be no one and everyone.She is a Chicago Mexican and a Gypsy. Her homelands are Central America and Eastern and Mediterranean Europe. Historically, these two geographical places share a common culture based on spirituality and music, but also on strict patriarchal principles embued with severe moral issues. Flamenco is a way-out, rejection of consumist and materialist society. Carmen lives a fake romantic existence and dreams of the sea, Spain, other beautiful places her lovers have described her. When she travels to Germany there is only tears and disappointment with their own history based on wars. The novel could be discussed in thousands of aspects, but here is neither place nor time. I was wondering about postmodern elements in the novel, as I'm writing my final thesis about this. If someone could help me? I hope to meet Ana Castillo in Europe-actually, in Italy!

Strong and smooth like the beats of flamenco Castillo wrote this novel to defy patriarchy. Carmen--Castillo's main character--refuses being possessed by any of her lovers. How? Read the novel. It is an impressive novel indeed.

Castillo's talent is once more intensified in Peel my Love Like an Onion. Her witty interweaves her romantic language to portray the struggle of Carmen La Coja. Castillo wants finally to prove that Carmen, despite her disability is the most powerful character in the novel. This entails her reflections on different issues: romance, national identity, gender identity. Castillo weaves all these threads successfully. Don't miss reading the novel.

So, ok you're a flamenco star and you're 40 years old, and your lovers are both younger and older dancers. But how did you go from working at the airport to recoring music, living at home to buying a condo? I loved your "voice" Carmen, but some where along the way your vida loca just didn't seem real.

If pretentious language, mock-profundity, heavy-handedness, and stereotypes are what you like, then this is the book for you. PEEL MY LOVE LIKE AN ONION is nothing more than a gussied-up Harlequin Romance hiding behind the good name of literature. Don't be fooled by this one.

i initially bought this book because i mistook the prase for "so far from god" as praise for this book. so i was a little dissapointed when this book was more dramatic that humorous. but the more i read it the more i battled with it. i feel that the fluidity to keep the reader intrigued was absent. there were times where i couldn't put it down and others where i couldn't figure out why i was reading this. but when i actually finished the book i came to realize that it was a good book, and a pleasant read. now i just want to read "so far from god" to see what all the commotion was about.

No tears from the onion, but no joy either. I wallowed my way though this novel - I got the point that she is sad, beautiful and crippled. Are we supposed to be surprised that she has loved and lost? The entire book seemed to be filled with many words about emotion, but no actual comittment to deep feelings.

For a more interesting read about love and a societal misfit try: Elizabeth McCracken's The Giant's House: A Romance