2019 Book Six: Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton

Format: Kindle
Date Started:  January 30, 2019
Date Finished: February 4, 2019

I became Cuban by marriage in 2014.  My husband's paternal grandparents immigrated from Cuba in the 1940s well before the revolution.  Though my husband's uncles live there now, the family didn't settle in Florida but in Washington DC.  Their family being infinitely pragmatic, I've learned that there wasn't a lot of rhapsodizing over what was lost in Cuba.  They had to make a new life in America, and so they did.  When my husband's grandfather's law degree from Cuba wasn't recognized, he retrained as an engineer.  My father-in-law is like that, too.  If something needs doing, you do it.  What other choice is there?  And, I recognized those same traits in Cleeton's characters as well.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this book.  The beautiful cover hints at throes of passion and romance, and while the main thrust of the story's action was driven by love, it wasn't a romance novel as I feared.  If anything, it was more a love story to Cuba.  Not just the country that was lost in the revolution, but also a love of the people and their lives now as well as their hope for the future. 

Cleeton also did a wonderful job of naturally weaving the history of the island and its political climate into the  story.  She didn't have any of her characters lecture or deliver a history lesson.  The only thing that I wasn't keen on, though, was her characters' tendencies to get fired up about Cuba and speak for several pages worth of dialogue.  I think it was supposed to read like passion and a burning desire for reform/revolution, but to me it came off as ranting. 

In an attempt to get fancy, I've also added this review to GoodReads.