“It is 1998 and Leonora Gelb, a passionate and idealistic Stanford grad, is determined to make a difference. While working in the slums of Lima, Peru, she falls into the orbit of a Marxist revolutionary group; when they are eventually captured, Gelb is sentenced to life in a Peruvian prison.

Ten years later, Andres—an aimless American expat novelist—is asked to write a journalistic profile of “La Leo.” In flight from problems of his own, he struggles to understand Leonora, to reconstruct her involvement with the militants, and to chronicle Peru’s violent history. Is the real Leo an activist or a terrorist? Cold-eyed conspirator or naïve puppet?

Inspired by the dramatic events surrounding controversial American activist Lori Berenson, Andrew Altschul’s moving new novel maps the blurred boundaries between fact and fiction, author and text, passion and violence. It is a coming-of-age story, a political thriller—and a love letter to a troubled nation.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book that I got through Amazon Vine to review.

Story (2/5): I decided to set this aside about 100 pages in. It was kind of interesting but I didn’t really enjoy the style in which it was written. The chapters go randomly between the author explaining the history and events of the time, and the story of Leonora Gelb. At one point the author even makes fun of himself saying that his publisher said people aren’t interested in the history but want to hear Leonora’s story….sorry to say but the publishers have a point. I actually do want to learn the history but I would also like a cohesive story as well.

Characters (3/5): Leonora is fictional character, so this is another one of those weird fictional accounts where a person is made to seem real but isn’t. Leonora’s story is based very loosely on the real revolutionary Lori Berenson. I always struggle to engage with an account like this…that is made to seem so historical accurate but is still fiction. There were a few other characters surrounding Leonora that were prominent but they weren’t well characterized and it was hard to engage with them because of how the story bounced around. Leonora seems like an interesting character but she’s always held at a distance so it’s hard to really get in her head.

Setting (4/5): The story is set in 1998 in the slums of Lima, Peru. It’s an interesting setting and I enjoyed learning more about that time and what the people were going through.

Writing Style (2/5): This could have been much better formatted with maybe the history parts being their own chapters, footnotes, or maybe separate parts at the beginning of the chapter. With the way the reader is whipped between the history and Leonora’s story this is a struggle to follow and you are constantly trying to figure out what is general history and what is Leonora’s story. To be blunt this was hard to read.

My Summary (2/5): Overall I thought this was a bit of a mess (with the way the reader constantly has to struggle to figure out what is history of the time and what parts are Leonara’s story). I would constantly find myself thinking, “Oh, now I must be reading about Leonora again…no wait, I think we are still talking about the general history of the time.” I eventually got so frustrated I put it aside, this is not a time in my life when I need extra frustration. To be fair this was also a bit heavier of a read than I was expecting and I am not in a great mental frame to be concentrating on something so heavy given all the world events occuring. In the end I guess I might recommend this if you are interested in this time in history.

DNF Review – The Gringa by Andrew Altschul (2/5 stars)

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