Rating: ★★★★1/2
This is my first experience with Ruta Sepetys. It didn’t disappoint! The Fountains of Silence takes place under the reign of General Francisco Franco, after the Spanish Civil War and WWII.
We follow the lives of four very different characters. Daniel is from Texas, the son of a wealthy oil tycoon. Ana is the daughter of Republican parents that were executed when she was younger. She lives with her older sister’s family and works at the Castellana Hilton in Madrid. Rafa is her brother, who was forced to attend a reform school following the death and discovery of his parents, and became friends with Fuga, an aspiring torero (bull fighter). He wants nothing more than to work the arena at Fuga’s side as his promoter and protector. Puri is Ana’s cousin, a staunch Catholic and supporter of Franco. She works at the orphanage, caring for all the abandoned children.
This is a largely character driven novel and the plot takes quite some time to reveal itself. I didn’t mind it here, because the chapters were all very quick (2 or 3 pages, sometimes less) and I was urged onward by Daniel’s relationship with Ana, as well as the tension brought on by his passion for photography in a country that was very careful not to let the rest of the world see inside Franco’s regime. Puri and Rafa also have story line’s with some intrigue and each line pulled me in and kept me engaged at different times in different ways.
The plot, which as I said is slow to be revealed, is incredibly sinister. The reader gets hints here and there of what is to come, but it’s something so awful the reader just doesn’t want to believe. To get to the end and learn the truth of things… I was shocked. It’s a secret that has really only come to light in 2018, if I understood the note at the end correctly. A full 40 years after the death of Franco, which only heightened the impact of the story Sepetys has told.
The writing was descriptive and painted beautiful pictures without ever feeling like it was spending too much time on the details. I love when a writer can make me feel the setting with just one sentence, one single image, and Sepetys does it wonderfully. People standing in line for blood, a torero in a suit of lights in profile, people washing at the fountain, a garden in Madrid at night… I felt transported to another time and place and found the book almost impossible to put down.
The only thing that held this back from being a full five star read – was I wished I understood Puri’s character and story better in the end. It’s clear in the beginning that she is young and naive, and she undergoes an awakening of sorts throughout the novel, but in the end we see her, and she’s maintained her silence for ten years, and the reader never really gets a chance to understand what she’s thinking in the end. Thank you to the publisher for sending a review copy.
The Fountains of Silence released on October 1, 2019 and can be found on GoodReads or Amazon.
This sounds wonderful! Bull fighting is not my favorite thing to read about, but it sounds like there’s way more to this book than just that. And I love authors who can convey a sense of place effortlessly, which it sounds like she can do😁 Awesome review!
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You never actually see any bull fights- so you should definitely check it out. And I loved the setting and it was conveyed very well, but as an added bonus, she showed it from both an insider’s and an outsider’s perspective.
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Great review! I’m not sure it would be my kind of book at all – I think I know what event this is about and it would be too much for me – but I’m glad that someone is writing about some of the less-known ugly parts of history (are there far too many) in YA, and that she’s doing it well. There’s so much that doesn’t get a chance to be taught in schools.
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I distinctly remember this not being taught in school and was so thankful to be given the opportunity to read the book becAuse I honestly had no idea.
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Goodreads has this one tagged as a YA Historical… did it feel very YA? Your review of it sounds more on the adult side, but sometimes it can be hard to tell.
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The only real thing YA about it is the age of the protagonists for the majority of the novel. It did not feel specifically YA to me.
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Okay, that’s good to know! I don’t mind YA protagonists, but too often YA books have a different feel to them so I wasn’t sure how well it would work for a historical.
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I absolutely agree- I’m not a big fan of YA either, but this didn’t feel like YA. I think readers to tend towards adult would enjoy it.
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Awesome! Thanks for the advice on this one. 🙂
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You made this book sound very… evocative, for want of a better word, and it also possesses the important quality of showing a segment of history we might not know much about, which is always a plus in any story. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
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Oh wow, this sounds like an amazing read. I do enjoy character driven stories. Glad you loved this one so much!
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It was an amazing read! If you want to branch out of the fantasy zone, definitely give it a go!
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I really want to check this out- so I’m glad to hear it didn’t disappoint! I really like how Sepetys writes such character driven plots and writing style, so I’m looking forward to it and I’m glad it worked for you. And I like the sound of the plot. Fantastic review!!
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I don’t know if you are planning on reading it any time soon, but I’ll look out for your review! It really was wonderful and I think I’ll double back and check out some of Sepetys’s other work.
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