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Feb 01, 2012

Lisa rated it:

I hated this book. I couldn't even finish it. I started it and had so much trouble reading it that I put it down and didn't even want to pick it back up. Curious, I went to Goodreads to see what other people had said about it. Surprisingly, a lot of people loved it. A couple of people couldn't finish it, but the majority gave it good reviews. So I thought I'd give it another try. Ugh. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out its appeal!!

I just Googled it and found a NPR review that More...

7 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2011

Sath rated it:

The story is told as the collected journals of Harrison Shepherd, put together after his death by his secretary and friend Violet Brown. Beginning with his childhood, (just before WorldWar2), as his mexican mother leaves his american father and takes him with her back to mexico. Harrison writes his journals because he can't help but write, like other people cannot help breathing, he is destined to become an author one day.
Harrison's childhood is surreally beautiful, the problems of his c More...

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2009

Bridget rated it:

Yep, Barbara Kingsolver does it again, with a book that almost demands that you keep reading. This is the story of Harrison William Shepherd, the son of a Mexican mother, and an American father. The father is indifferent to the boy, and his mother longs for romance and adventure, so she returns to Mexico with the boy.

The book is written as if it is a diary or journal of Harrison's life from his earliest memories. He details his life in Mexico, where through a series of events, he More...

2 comments like (22 people liked it)

Nov 14, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

3 1/2 stars

The two sections of this book are different enough that it could almost be reviewed as two separate books. They really are THAT different.
First 275 pages or so = 4 stars
Final 230 pages or so = 2 stars

Kingsolver is at the peak of her descriptive powers in the first part of the book. Her bright, lively detailing of Harrison's early life in Mexico compensates for the patchiness of the narration. Add to that the real characters of Frida Kahlo, Diego More...

10 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 25, 2010

Alex rated it:

Placed in context with Kingsolver's other books this is essentially worthless. She turns Freida Kahlo into the most magical pixie dream girl ever and gives us a main character so thoroughly desexed and generally grey that one sort of imagines him as a Ken doll, completely generic and non-threating in every possible way. And I KNOW that's sort of the point of the main character, but still, he is pretty much one of the least enjoyable protagonists I've ever read since all you do is spend time wit More...

9 comments like (29 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2011

Carmen added it

While I thoroughly enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible I have huge problems with this book. Even though the book is fiction there are historical facts that have been included and it is indeed terrible when she makes so many mistakes. On page 56, she talks about the one fifth booty part that Cortes was to send to the Extremely Catholic Majesty the Queen. When this Queen, Isabel La Catolica, died in 1504, Cortes did not arrive in Mexico before 1519 and he wrote to and shared the booty with Carlos V More...

7 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 19, 2011

Julie rated it:

I had the privilege of listening to Kingsolver read this aloud as well as reading the print...I love her. Her voice and her style of narration, her perfectly articulated words and sounds all captivated me instantly. Hearing V.B.'s voice as Kingsolver intended it is what made me want to just hug Violet Brown. The characters were so lovable (even though I'd never want to hang out with Harrison or Violet in real life, but Trotsky definitely).

I have heard people say that this book h More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2012

JZ rated it:

Became a 'huge Kingsolver fan in the mid 90's when I read "The Bean Trees", and "Lacuna" did not disappoint. Sometimes books come along at the right time, I had seen the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philly Art Museum, and of course, watched the movie again. So last year I picked up "Lacuna" and embraced it all, the art, the politics, and learned about the Monument Men, the military art experts who helped pack and move our art treasures from Washington DC to the Biltmo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 09, 2011

Brian rated it:

Kingsolver's best book since The Poisonwood Bible, The Lacuna is the story of a diffident, unassuming man who is thrust unwillingly onto the centre stage of history. Harrison Shepherd, is born in America but raised in Mexico by his half American, half Mexican mother, a woman who is temperamentally discontented with her position in society and is always seeking to improve it through a series of affairs with married men.

As a youth, Harrison becomes involved with the painters Diego Riv More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

May 19, 2011

Ramey rated it:

while i was reading this book, i didn't want to let it out of my physical presence. i kept it by the bed, in my hand on the bart, near my computer at work. i asked my girlfriend if she was jealous that i just wanted to hold this book, at all times. that's how powerful i found kingsolver's story to be,,, during the week or so that i had the privilege of sinking into her unbelievably strong narrative, i wanted to be nowhere else, at all.

the upshot of the book is as follows,,, barbara kin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 07, 2010

Aylin rated it:

I really liked the first part (roughly half) of this book about a boy (Harrison)who is being raised by a mother who eeks out an existence by sponging off the men she manages to ensnare. The setting is 1930's Mexico. Mexican artists Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo are an integral part of the story, as is Lev Trotsky (leader of the Bolshevik Revolution and Rivera's friend and houseguest).

The second half of the book completely switches gears. The setting is Asheville NC where More...

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2010

Jess rated it:

Here is a story where the characters and setting shine through, with an audio version that's soft but draws you in. After 16 CDs of Kingsolver's voice, I find myself thinking in her rendition of Violet Brown, with a Carolina accent and old-fashioned sentence structure. My stars. The only fault I find is with the plot - after the movement and tension of the early part of the story, Shepherd's years in the US lose momentum. The Cold War implications feel inevitable, and the many newspaper clip More...

4 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2010

Gini rated it:

I saw a review of this book on television that made me buy it the next day. I'd not read Kingsolver before, but the first part of the story took place in Mexico, in the homes of Frida Khalo, Diego Rivera and Trotsky-- and I've been to those houses several times and was looking forward to reading about the people who had lived in them. I enjoyed the first half of the book very much, but the second half -- after so much color and action -- fell flat. Most of the story unfolded as rather obvious c More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Oct 21, 2010

Patty rated it:

I don't give a book the 5 stars without much consideration. This author's beautiful language and the things she taught me make Lacuna very special to me.
I found myself in the bright and colorful world of Frida Kahlo's Mexico, and the gloomy sphere of the iron curtain and our country's disturbing consequences of McCarthyism. A real work of art that took me away from my cozy home.
It's not a quick read or one you can put down without considering all the circumstances of all the main cha More...

0 comments like (17 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2009

MK rated it:

Is there anyone who writes with such beauty as Barbara Kingsolver? She has an ability to transform the reader from reading on a dreary porch to Isla Pixol, Mexico of the 1930s to Asheville, North Carolina of the 1940s. To transform someone from a beloved novelist to a scourge to be abhorred overnight. The Lacuna is about Harrison Shepherd, son of a Mexican woman and a US government official, who belonged to both countries, yet not to either of them. He wound up working for Diego Rivera and F More...

0 comments like (18 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2011

Anita rated it:

I loved this book. I enjoyed the intertwining of history and fiction and the way the author breathed life into characters such as Frieda Kahlo and Trotsky. Mexican history and customs were revealed along with American history as seen through the writings and adventures os Harrison Shepherd from the age of 12 in 1929 until the 1950's. Great story, well written!

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2009

Candace rated it:

This is quite the novel, as full and satisfying as anything I've read in some time. Its picture of Mexico in the 30's is spot on, and the characters of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Lev Trotsky feel fresh and sharp.

The political correctness which bored me in Barbara Kingsolver's novels seem naive has developed--she's showing, not preaching. A wonderful read by an author who is at her best.

0 comments like (16 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2009

Karen rated it:

The only disappointing thing about this book was that I finished it, and have no new Kingsolver books to look forward to.

As always, her writing is exquisite. I found myself re-reading parts just to savor her use of language.

The Lacuna is a novel based on real events in history--the Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo and the period in the 1930's when Trotsky was exiled in Mexico. I learned a lot while enjoying a good story, not really sure where it was headin More...

3 comments like (19 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2009

Janet rated it:

The best book I have read this year.This historical novel tells the story of a boy with an American father,Mexican mother,follows him thru Mexico in the 1930's and then to North Carolina in the 1950's.

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 12, 2011

Barry added it

The Lacuna is such a difficult book to review, it being several books in one. Indeed, the narrative flows through three decades, two countries and two narrators. I'm in two minds with this book. It ended really well with McCarthyism beginning to bite and likewise started brilliantly with Shepherd growing up on an island and moving on to work in the households of Rivera & Trotsky.

However, there is a large section (the majority of his stay in the US) in which I totally lost interest and actually More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Ron added it

I enjoyed this far more than I expected, largely because of its historical setting and what I learned about Mexico, Trotsky and the early HUAC hearings. I also appreciated what we discovered about the power of the press, prejudice in the USA during the war years and even some Mexican cooking methods! Okay, maybe the book was longer than needed [too many of the newspaper extracts] and perhaps the complex structure was rather confusing at first, but once the narrative started to unfold and we fol More...

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Mar 05, 2010

Sara added it

The Lacuna is a historical novel about the life of a reclusive writer it spans from 1929 to 1951, moving between Mexico and the United States. It is told in the form of journals, letters, newspaper clippings and other historical documents a scrapbook that tells the story of not just a single life, but an era in our nation s political history.[return][return]The protagonist, Harrison Shepherd, grows up on both sides of the border of Mexico and the United States, without a stable home life. More...

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Jan 08, 2010

Anne added it

Every night while I was reading this book, I dreamt of its characters. I enjoyed the leisurely first part, but when Kingsolver plunged into the Diego Rivera/Frida Kahlo/Lev Trotsky section, I plunged deeper with her. And by the time the protagonist is writing books, receiving adulation and criticism in his homeland, I was reading the book on at least three levels: 1) paying attention to the protagonist's actions and reactions, 2)reviewing what I know of American history and culture from 1930-195 More...

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Feb 04, 2012

Mightyko rated it:

This is far and away her best novel. In my brain, when I read it, there is NO way that Harrison Shepherd is not a real person. I fully expect to hear about him in the papers or pick up a history book and find him there. I can't believe she made a character with a voice as real as his and a story about a life as full as his.

There is a tendency to write pretentiously when in first person. Mitchell somehow avoids that and now Kingsolver accomplishes it in The Lacuna. The book is pieced More...

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Jan 24, 2012

Paul rated it:

Browsing through the stacks at the local library, this book caught my eye. I very much enjoyed "The Poisonwood Bible" a few years back. This is a "post-modern" novel. It is a reconstruction of diary entries, letters, and connecting information of the life of Harrison Shepherd, a fictional novelist of the middle of the last century. He lived in interesting times. Harrison's mother was Mexican and his father American. Born in the U.S. and taken to Mexico as a child, he learned More...

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Jan 23, 2012

Christy rated it:

After this book sat on my bookshelf for well over a year (maybe two), I finally opened it up because of its connection to America's Red Scare. Last fall I taught both "The Crucible" and "1984", books written amid the rise of Communism and our fear of it. In "The Lacuna," America's attitudes to Communism and the rest of the world come to light through the lives of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Lev Trotsky in Mexico. I've loved the legend of Kahlo since watching the H More...

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Jan 11, 2012

Christi rated it:

I love love loved this book. Kingsolver writes loveable characters and this book is full of them. The time period (Mexican Revolution, WWII, American's Red Scare) were new to me. WWII was as seen from the perspective of the average Americans at home buying war bonds and making do with food rations--- not the typical nurses and heros. She writes about glimpses of America (and Mexico) that have been largely ignored or forgotten. I had never realized how the anti-communist sentiment so impacted Ame More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 30, 2011

Bill rated it:

Why? An appropriate question after reading many Lacuna pages about Harrison Shepherd’s boyhood on the Isla Pixol in Mexico; his Mexican mother; their move to Mexico City; his employment by Diego and Frida Rivera; and finally his employment by Leon Trotsky as a cook and typist. While on Isla Pixol young Shepherd hears howling monkeys each morning, writes diaries and discovers a lacuna. It is an underwater cave that opens as a pool, protected and several feet from the sea. His father is an More...

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Dec 29, 2011

Faisal rated it:

It took me a little over a month and a half to finish this book. The first Barbara Kingsolver book i read was The Poisonwood Bible which I still consider to be her best work.

The Lacuna is a wonderful book in its own rite. It describes the history of Mexico and the various upheavals it has gone through. Harrison Shepard comes to Mexico at the time when there is a sense of national liberation and is fortunate enough to be employed at the house of Diego Rivera and much later Lev Trotsky More...

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Dec 20, 2011

Bob rated it:

This book was recommmended by Sally Herndon from the Fit Swim class I teach at the Y. I listened to it on tape read by Barbara Kingsolver herself. I enjoyed the beautiful phrases and metaphors, the description of small things, the interactions and internal feelings of the characters. I had never read anything by Kingsolver. She is a master of observation and description. I also enjoyed relearning and in some ways re-experiencing the various historical periods and people described including Di More...

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