Customer Reviews

Yo amo a mi mami (Spanish Edition)

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This book will keep you entertained since the start. I couldn't put it down. This is the first time I read one of Baylys books and I am going to get my second one. He is great! I highly recommend it.

"Yo amo a mi mami" remains in my mind engraved as Bayly's finest novel. As I read it, each page unraveled with a novelty unmatched in my experience as a reader. The freshness of expression and the compelling immediacy of the stories contained in this novel not only are representative of where I come from but are also emblematic of my generation and are truly a gift to the world.

The novel's many captivating characters live in Peru, where I grew up in the late 80's and early 90's, watching Bayly (then in his early 20's) on TV, playing the role of late night talkshow host to millions of addicted fans who reveled as he made a fool of himself and other local and international celebrities through self-deprecation and sarcasm. Like him, I experienced directly and indirectly the social ills and wonders of Peru, which he portrays with great range in "Yo amo a mi mami."

In Peru, Bayly's TV persona has always been referred to as "TV's terrible child," even now that he is in his early 40's. TV's Bayly is deftly sardonic but I, like many who watched him, I'm sure, never imagined that he would someday channel his unique brand of humor and powers of observation into literature, much less that he would do so so amazingly well. He never seemed to have the emotional maturity I thought was necessary to write a great novel, a comedy perhaps but not a literary novel. However, learned I have that he has whatever it is one needs to be a masterful, relevant and exciting writer, an artist who can write beautifully, insightfully and compellingly about the things he knows to be true, to depart--as he admittedly does--from his own history and nakedness and go on to construct a work of art that takes him beyond his own limitations. (One only needs to watch his TV show to realize that the writer and the TV persona are at times as far apart as wit and meticulousness are from folly and arrogance--I imagine TV's Bayly, in typical self-deprecating fashion, would agree.)

In reading Bayly's previous novels, I always found that the drama and fun lied in the erratic, often self-destructive journey his main protagonists typically went on, characteristics akin to the author's own very public struggles; however, in "Yo amo a mi mami," Bayly, like Jimmy, the novel's main protagonist and narrator, appears to embark on a journey of self-discovery. We are introduced to Jimmy's main childhood characters, divided into the two families that raised him: his financially rich but emotionally detached biological family--a rude, aloof, workaholic father and a puritanical, emotionally unreliable, seemingly drug-addicted mother, for starters--and his meek but emotionally and spiritually rich family of choice, the nurturing servants with whom he spent most of his time growing up--a fun, hard-working and often-noble bunch of characters.

Bayly truly finds himself as a writer here as he decribes and contrasts, through sharp, agile and often-hilarious dialogue and prose, the faces and stories of innocence, ignorance, cynicism, kindness and grace that inhabited Jimmy's world through his adolescence and shaped who he became later--something ultimately left for the reader to imagine. The characters in this novel felt uniquely human (funny, poignant, sad, you name it), revealing and freeing to me. They, at Bayly's command, validated the reality of my childhood and teenage years--as well as my aspirations as an adult--in a credible, deeply moving and powerful way.

I won't say Yo amo a mi mami is a flawless novel; it isn't. The format he uses resembles that of memoirs while the chapters can read like short stories, each uniquely captivating in its own right, but lacking a strong unifying interconnection. Also, minor narrative inconsistencies pop up, but all of these issues are merely a reminder that the writer is human after all, a good, much-needed reminder to all those entranced with the overall superb quality of this novel--and Bayly's "nino terrible de la TV" fame. It is easily one of the top ten books I've ever read, Bayly's best so far for sure, though I have a feeling it won't be his best for long.

I know the people of whom Jaime Bayly writes in 'Yo Amo a mi Mami' - read it and wept, and then started reading it again. He named my world, in all its barbarity. A wonderful book.

Simplemente disfrute mucho la lectura de este libro. Me hizo reir mucho y vi reflejada la realidad de casi todas las familias de clase medio alta de nuestros paises con este libro. Me encanta el estilo de escribir de Bayly

Jaimito te pasaste. A veces me provoca a mi también ponerme a escribir (sabes, yo también amo muchisisímo a mi mami), por que creo que si escribiera me saldría algo parecido a lo que tú escribes. Te mando un besototote.

This is a charming book, well written and fun to read. And a very revealing portrait of Limenos of a certain class. If you enjoyed Bryce Echinique's 'Un mundo para Julius', this should be on your must-read list.