In 1989, Rita, a 16 year old girl lives with her family in a remote small town in Columbia. It is a dangerous time when guerrillas have just about taken over the town and church. There is the sound of men talking outside her second story window and she can help taking a look out. She made eye contact with one of them.
Soon after that, she encounter him, the guerrilla they call Lucas, in the street several times, actually he follows her around. He tries to convince her that he is a nice guy and she finally falls for it. The meet in secret and have an affair, which results in pregnancy. By the time she realizes she is pregnant, Lucas has been sent away by his commander.
Asher Sebastian Stone grew up in California with wonderful parents. He always knew he was adopted, his parents even read a letter to him from his birth mother. However, he was never really curious to know more about her until his accident. He started wonder if she ever thought of him and if she wondered how he was.
I loved the story of Rita, how she girl up with extremely strict parents in a small town, what she did to pass the time at the orphanage while pregnant and her new life after in Bogota. Bogota has always been a fascinating place to me because my brother, Steve play French horn in the symphony orchestra there in the later 70’s. He painted a pretty bleak picture, with men with machine guns on roof tops to keep the peace.
Leila Cobo paints a story of what it is like to grow up in guerrilla infiltrated Columbia as well as what is means to be adopted. At times it felt like it was lacking in something, though I can’t quite figure out what. Nonetheless, this is a great character study and the well written story kept me turning the pages.
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I received this book from Grand Central Publishing for my honest review.
