Status Update

Jen is 70% done

Ok. I’m sorry, but I’m 70% into this book and I’m not seeing how Mercedes was the Belle Creole who enthralled Europe and Cuba, just an old woman who trusts a bad man to help her who just ends up victimizing her. This is leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. I’ll try to finish this, but it’s going to be a struggle.

— Jul 25, 2020 02:18PM

La Belle Créole: The Cuban Countess Who Captivated Havana, Madrid, and Paris

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Jen’s Previous Updates

Jen is 76% done

Acknowledgements and I guess notes/works cited starts at 76%. This ended so depressingly. Review to come.

— Jul 25, 2020 02:39PM

Jen is 70% done

Wow, he was either extremely inept with money and business, or he purposefully ruined her. What an @ss! And what an idiot she was for trusting him for as long as she did.

— Jul 25, 2020 02:16PM

Jen is 70% done

Money troubles because 1) she’s spending more than she has to maintain a certain lifestyle, 2) supporting a sh*tty man who is 3) mismanaging her funds. The man, btw, got his first wife when she was married to someone else and when they finally did get married, he didn’t stay faithful to her, possibly with Mercedes, though it isn’t spelled out as such. I thought Mercedes was supposed to be smart!

— Jul 25, 2020 02:13PM

Jen is 55% done

The first charitable concerts were started in good part by Mercedes in the 1820s-30s. She sang for freedom for the Greeks, Polish refuges, destitute workers, earthquake victims. She organized and sang in them. She was a very large hearted woman.

— Jul 25, 2020 09:16AM

Jen is 54% done

Prince Emilio Belgiojoso’s voice was so amazing, Liszt wished “that financial ruin would force him into a professional singing career.” (The sentence was worded awkwardly, at first it seemed Liszt wanted to be destitute himself so he would have to sing professionally, which made no sense!)

— Jul 25, 2020 09:12AM

Jen is 52% done

We get so LITTLE of Mercedes. I feel like we know more about the people in her life than her herself. Her daughter died at age three and we get ONE paragraph about it, with the supposition that it affected Mercedes. We also don’t learn how the poor little girl died. Weird things are left out and weird things included...

— Jul 25, 2020 08:57AM

Jen is 51% done

Wait, WAIT WHUT?!? Joseph Bonaparte has an estate in NEW JERSEY that he went to after Napoleon lost the war?!?! Ok, I admit I’m an ignorant American and didn’t know a lot about Napoleon other than Waterloo and Wellington, BUT I LIVE IN NEW JERSEY. HOW DID I MISS KNOWING THIS?!?! Pardon me while I follow the rabbit down this particular hole.

— Jul 22, 2020 05:03PM