The Feast of the Goat in Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

May 26, 2017 Arukiyomi rated it really liked it

Powerful and at times gripping, this is not what I’ve come to expect from novels from Latin/South American authors. In fact, this is the very first of the many I’ve read that I enjoyed and would recommend.

Based on the actual life of the Dominican dictator Trujillo, the novel centres around his assassination. One one side you have the build up, the background, the character formation, the development of the plot and, after the epicentre, the hiding, the clampdown, the reassessment of a nation’s i ...more

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Aug 01, 2007 Rachel rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2007

Overall, this book was amazing. Llosa gives his readers the opportunity to get inside of Trujillo, his followers and his assassins at the end of his regime. Comical at times and unbearably grotesque at others, I enjoyed Llosa's version of the events immensly. Urania's chapters were a little slow and at times I was tempted to skip over them. I also felt that the translator did a poor job capturing the innuendos Llosa intended and there were times when mispelled words (desert:dessert) distracted m ...more

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Sep 30, 2009 Anna rated it really liked it

For me books by Mario Vargas Llosa have more inner sense in their construction and plot than books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (more magical realism).

The Feast of the Goat shows a fictional story of Domicana's tyrant and people around him presented from few points of view. Definitely must-read from Latino-American literature. ...more

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Oct 15, 2010 Kecia rated it liked it

Shelves: nobel_laureates, 1001-books, dominican-republic

I think it was the translation but at times this read more like a textbook than a novel. Still it was an engaging, and often graphic, read. I'm interested in knowing more about these characters. ...more

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