Cuba Libre

by Emily Barr

Wanneer de relatie van Maggie op de klippen loopt, verhuist ze naar Brighton. Het aanknopen van nieuwe vriendschappen wil maar niet lukken en uit eenzaamheid ontwikkelt Maggie een dwangmatige belangstelling voor haar buren Libby en David. Na de geboorte van hun baby heeft Libby haar baan opgezegd, maar haar nieuwe leven als fulltime moeder bevalt haar maar matig. Juist wanneer ze heeft besloten dat ze weer een baan gaat zoeken, vertelt David dat hij een sabbatical wil nemen, en hij haalt Libby over om een half jaar naar Cuba te gaan om Spaans te leren. Maggie volgt haar buren Havana, waar haar verleden - en dan vooral de gewelddadige dood van haar jongere zus - haar begint te kwellen. En terwijl Maggie’s eigen leven haar stukje bij beetje ontglipt, probeert ze dat van Libby over te nemen...

Genres: Chick Lit, Fiction, Travel, Novels, British Literature, Contemporary

349 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

About the author

Emily Barr worked as a journalist in London, but always hankered after a quiet room and a book to write. She went travelling for a year, writing a column in the Guardian about it as she went, and it was there that she had an idea for a novel set in the world of backpackers in Asia. This became Backpack, which won the WH Smith New Talent Award. She has since written eleven more adult novels published in the UK and around the world, and a novella, Blackout, for the Quick Reads series. Her twelfth novel, The Sleeper, is a psychological thriller set on the London to Cornwall sleeper train.
In 2013 she went to Svalbard with the idea of setting a thriller in the Arctic. The book that came out of it was The One Memory of Flora Banks, a thriller for young adults, which attracted universal interest from publishers before being bought pre-emptively by Penguin earlier this year. It will be published globally in January 2017.
She lives in Cornwall with her partner and their children.

Reviews

[Kelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

though this is not my typical choice of reading material, i did enjoy this book. i read the majority of the book on a flight from california to michigan and it made the trip pleasurable....as did the vodka. i suggest drinking and flying while reading this book...i don't know if i'd have liked it as much if i was grounded and sober.

[Cláudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Emily Barr always write in a way that makes it almost impossible to stop reading, even if you absolutely can't stand the main character. Oh, how I hated Maggie. Still do!
This book is the most depressive and oppressive I've read so far from this author, glad I already read several others or I don't know if I would continue...
Also,if a writer is using a foreign language, he/she should be completely sure the words and phrases are correct. Several of the "spanish" words and expressions used were in fact portuguese and/or italian, and not even in a correct sentence. So no point in thanking who helped with that at the begginng of the book, as the help was clearly extremely poor.

[Birgit Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5⭐

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Demolished this in 3 days, and have forgotten it just as quickly as I read it. I can’t say I wasn’t throughly grasped and hardly put it down though, mouth open in shock reading the last few pages. An excellent book when you have nothing to do. I also think the characters were beautiful written honestly, and felt genuine compassion for them when things were tits up.

I did want a slightly more thrilling ending though, call me pessimistic but I somewhat didn’t feel it was fitting it all to end in sunshine and roses sorrrrrayyy!

[Ari Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was just ok. I enjoyed the fact it took place in Cuba because it's such a magical place. Other than that, meh.

[Alex Ankarr · Rating 4 out of 5]

liked it.

[Ape · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've had this book for almost four years and I've now gotten around to reading it. I've read her other book, backpack, which was all right. This was.... not as good. It was all right, passed the time, but there wasn't the feeling of travel and adventure that I got from backpack; it just seemed to be more towards the standard side of chick lit things, with far too much about babies and breastfeeding (yawn) - had I known, I probably wouldn't have bothered with this book. I had hoped for more of the Cuba experience, that this book didn't really do in any great way. The characters and the plotlines are very standard as well. I also found it depressing that books still aren't getting away from the body obsessions... I did get bored reading about how a size 14 is fat, shapeless and unattractive (which it's not by the way!). To be honest, as soon as any book feels the need to tell me a character's dress size, I loose a little respect for it.

So, we've got Maggie who's messed up, not eating, stripping to pay her way and living in a basement flat in Brighton. Her sister's going to have a baby, so she buys some baby monitors as a present, tries them out in her flat and discovers that she's tuned into the monitors upstairs where Libby, David and baby Charlie are. She gets sucked into their lives like a soap opera and is devasted when they decide to move to Cuba so that David can learn Spanish. Unable to be apart from them, she quits stripping and moves to Cuba to enrol on the same course. And her annoying leggy blonde friend, Yasmin, decides to come to. There's the usual tensions of does so and so want to sleep with him/her; oh I've lost weight and feel like a new woman etc and then a crazy conclusion to the story. Good for beaches and boring flights I guess.

[Beata Zwarycz · Rating 4 out of 5]

In "Cuba" Emily Barr serves up her signature cocktail of chick lit and sociopolitical commentary. Just take some relationship pressures, mix in daddy issues, throw in a few repressed memories, the trade embargo, dual economy, add some simple syrup and top it off with a lime wedge. Mmmmm..... Delicious!

[Sharla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read several of Emily Barr's books before I knew I would enjoy this one too. Quite a sinister turn in the story and I did feel the last bit was sort of rushed through.

[Zubs Malik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emily Barr’s ‘Cuban Heels’ is one of those brilliantly written fiction novels that makes it impossible for you to stop reading it. Despite having mixed feelings about some of the characters I loved the storyline and the big climax at the end. 
Following a break up from her long-term partner, Margaret ‘Maggie’ decides to move to Brighton from Scotland in the hope that he would eventually follow her. However, life is not as glamorous as what she initially assumed it would be and the iconic beachfront with its eclectic range of vintage boutiques offer her zero comfort. The only thing that she has to look forward to is coming home to a lonely basement flat and a job dancing at a nightclub called Vixen. 
Her life picks up when she realises that she can overhear everything in her neighbours flat via a baby monitor she was testing after she purchased it for her pregnant sister. When she overhears her neighbour David tell his wife Libby that they are going on a sabbatical to Cuba with their infant son for a year Maggie catches the travelling bug. It isn’t long before she decides that David and Libby will not be going alone and then the real hidden tragedy that affected Maggie is slowly revealed. 
This book is a great easy and light-hearted holiday read. It is written very well and requires no effort to get right into it. If you need a good book for your travels I would certainly recommend you picking this up. 
Which brings me to a question for you all. What is the best destination that you have travelled to? Cape Town – South Africa was my absolute fave and I cannot wait to visit there again! .

[Crystal Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It started off quite unadorned, a young woman starting a new life in a new city, after a break up. The usual. But as the story line developed, it became a much more complicated scenario. I love how the book touched on some very sensitive social topics such as child murder, pedophilia, grief and mental health issues in such a real and open way. These things happen in our world today and so many people just want to sweep reality under the carpet. This book faced these issues head on and brought them into the light so they can be dealt with. I found the story line to be unique and intriguing, I couldn't put the book down. The author did an amazing job with not revealing too much and keeping the reader in anticipation right up until the last page. The reader observes the main characters decent into delusionary madness but I loved how ultimately the story was one of healing. The way the author portrayed the character, we could see that she could have been anyone of us, had our lives taken such a tragic turn from such a young age (her oldest sister was murdered by a pedophile). I also loved the element of travel and felt like I got a taste of Cuba. The only thing I did not enjoy about the book was the ending, I thought it was bland and insignificant. Also I would have liked to have known a little of what went down with her long lost boyfriend. Overall, a very deep and heartfelt novel with unique and believable characters. Thanks to the author for writing it :)

[Chrissieleest · Rating 2 out of 5]

Soms weet ik het gewoon even niet. Wat kan ik over dit boek zeggen en vooral hoe. Het lezen is een ware beproeving geweest. Vooral de eerste helft was vreemd en ongeloofwaardig en vooral heel negatief en traag. Daarna kwam er iets meer verklaring voor gedragingen. Het was alleen allemaal te langzaam, te uitgesponnen, te verzonnen. De hoofdpersonen waren onsympathiek. Nare gedachten over anderen. Het was niet fijn lezen. Ik heb het boek uitgelezen tegen beter weten in. Het is nu wel uit. En kan ik het loslaten en aan een ander boek beginnen. Het is duidelijk niet mijn thema, schrijfstijl en plot.

[Astrid · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one has been sitting on my shelves forever when I finally picked it up. After reading through several reviews I was worried I might not like it.

Instead I found myself drawn in. A deeply troubled protagonist, a happy-not-so-happy couple, another possibly slutty friend, chilly England and socialist, sunny Cuba. Story told from different points of view and somehow disaster always lurking.

The reasons why it was not a five-star read to me was it took so long to find out about the trauma that led the protagonist to behave the way she did and the ending.

Would definitely recommend this one if you like a bit of a gloomy read in an exotic setting.

[Mallory · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book felt like it had a lot of promise to be kind of a chick-lit thriller, which I was very interested in. In the end, it just fizzled out for me and I found myself literally saying, "meh" as I flipped the final page. Potentially interesting characters that I wanted to know what happened to them, but, perhaps in the name of trying to make them "complex," Barr fell flat and just ended up making them not very compelling after all. I enjoyed the descriptions of living in Cuba though - this was the best part of the book!

[M-N · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for a good lets change my life in Cuba light read and that's what seemed to happen and then it got dark. It has a happy ending but no way that would have happened because of what happened . Though I did feel sorry for the lead character as others have mentioned I didn't like her and a few weeks in France with parents going for walks etc wouldn't cure the how far gone she had become...

[Andrea Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

DrAwn by the title and summary when in a 2nd hand I enjoyed the mixture of characters Maggie, thin and haunted discovers more about her neighbours than intended. She is drawn into their world to the extent when they leave for foreign shores she follows them. Libby and David have a baby Charlie who has turned Libby’s world on its’s head so now she wants to runaway. Maggie’s character is many layered and the way we get to know her is through gradual revelations. Great read

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have read a few Emily Barr books. Although this was ok I think it is the weakest. Sounded q exciting and a bit of a thriller but wasn't really very gripping. Took ages to get going too. I almost gave it up a few times. Glad to know what happened in the end but think it's quite forgetable a book really

[Lauren Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The twist in Maggies character got me hooked, but otherwise I found it slow to get into. A good portrayal of a woman ignoring unresolved trauma by trying to focus on someone else’s life instead of her own.

[Jemma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the story but I expected a bit more from the ending
There was also too much focus on how fat or thin the female characters were, yet the weight of the male character was never mentioned.
The descriptions of Cuba were great, felt like being there

[Wendy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring.

[Vickie Taylor-Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book! Maggie clearly had a mental illness and it was handled sensitively and more importantly believably without taking away from the story. Will read more by this author.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent novel from Emily Barr. The characters are so complex and real that you really do feel for them. This was a very different premise for a novel and it worked really well.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really easy holiday read

[Sarah Lawler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story took a strange turn that didn't really work.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy read. A bit far fetched in places. Havana sounds amazing and this book makes me want to go there.
I won’t let this book put me off trying her others.

[Pooja Mahimkar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bored out of my wits

[Emily Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found myself quite engrossed. I liked the character development, but had hoped for more of a sense of place in Cuba.

[Katrien · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 sterren. Verrassend leuk. Zit best wel clever in elkaar.
Ook leuk om te merken hoe mijn mening over de personages mee evolueert in het verhaal. Indrukken bedriegen soms.

[Yvonne Mendy-Harrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very very light read. Ridiculous plot and so silly stereotypes of high flying women... however some pertinent points towards the end of how the mind deals with trauma.

[Henny Drieenhuizen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Niet het beste boek, maar zeker wel vermakelijk.....