Reviewed by: Kaia
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
12+
Brief Insights: This powerful historical fiction novel immerses readers in 1950s Franco’s Spain through the eyes of Daniel, an American teen discovering his roots, and Ana, a hotel worker with a hidden past, both navigating secrets, oppression, and hope. With vivid imagery, emotional depth, and multi-perspective storytelling, the book captures themes of resilience, identity, and the search for truth amidst political darkness and oppression.
I love historical fiction and this book completely transported me to the past. Welcome to Franco’s Spain Madrid 1957. Eighteen year old Daniel Matheson is visiting Spain from the United States. His Dad is an oil tycoon and making an important deal with Spain. His mother is from Spain and Daniel is hoping to learn more about his culture. Daniel is staying at the grand hotel Castellana Hilton and hoping to use his photography to document this interesting time period in history. What he doesn’t realize is that everyone has secrets. Ana works at Castellana Hilton and is the daughter of Republicans. She is in charge of looking after the Matheson family.
This book was one of my favourite historical fiction I have ever read. It transported me back in time with vivid imagery and vibrant characters.The writing style was engaging and kept me hooked. The book started off someone slowly but I found this added to the story. The slow start laid a foundation of the world the book was set in which was simply incredible. The city of Madrid was so well described I felt like I was there. The characters were very interesting and different. Each and everyone of them had a unique perspective on Franco’s Spain.
“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”
I think this quote from the book perfectly captures the story. It symbolizes rebirth, hope and resilience which are incredibly important themes throughout the book. The characters represent this really well. Daniel was a really interesting character and it was eye opening to see his perspective. To see the view of an outsider during Franco’s Spain was very relatable; his thoughts and surprise at what was happening in Spain during the time period of the book mirrored my own. He tries to capture everything through photographs which I found very neat. I learnt a lot about photography and it showed a lot about Daniel’s character. Ana is also an incredible character despite what she has gone through she carries an incredible strength. She has lots of optimism and hope for the future, carries amazing hopes and dreams and tries to make life easier for others. Ana is a very kind and courageous character and was very inspiring. Throughout the story both characters learn a lot about themselves and each other. The supporting characters all had important roles in the story and had great character development. I felt as if I knew the whole cast of characters were described so well. They all had been through different hardships and each had a different reason for their hope and determination to keep on living and move towards the future.
The perspectives changed throughout the story. The book was mainly from Ana and Daniel’s points of view but there were quite a few parts told from other characters in the story. The book also contains pages with historical documents or statements said by people in power at the time. As well as reading an amazing story I also got to learn a lot about history and read some very interesting and eye opening primary sources. My only drawback about these two things were that they at times made the story line a little bit confusing and it was hard to follow all the threads at once.
The book was broken into two different parts: part one was set in 1957 and part two was set 18 years later. Part two was similar to an epilogue; it was very short and had a lot of information packed into. I wish the second part was a little bit longer so I could process it better. Overall both parts were amazing, personally I preferred the first one because the majority of the story happened in it.
I would rate this book 4/5 stars because it was amazing, unique and historically accurate. It is one of my favourite historical fiction books I have ever read! I learnt so much about a time period I had previously heard about. My only drawbacks were that I wished the second part was slightly longer and that the story line was slightly more clear. The characters had lots of depth and the story was very engaging. I would highly recommend this book to anyone 12+ because of mentions of torture, abuse and repression.
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