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Sacrificio
Set in Cuba in 1998, Sacrificio is a triumphant and mesmeric work of violence, loss, and identity, following a group of young HIV-positive counterrevolutionaries who seek to overthrow the Castro government.
Rafa, an Afro-Cuban orphan, moves to Havana with nothing to his name and falls into a job at a café. He is soon drawn into a web of bizarre, ever-shifting entanglements with his boss’s son, the charismatic Renato, leader of the counterrevolutionary group “Los Injected Ones,” which is planning a violent overthrow of the Castro government during Pope John Paul II's upcoming visit.
When Renato goes missing, Rafa’s search for his friend takes him through various haunts in Havana: from an AIDS sanatorium, to the guest rooms of tourist hotels, to the outskirts of the capital, where he enters a phantasmagorical slum cobbled together from the city’s detritus by Los Injected Ones.
A novel of cascading prose that captures a nation in slow collapse, Sacrificio is a visionary work, capturing the fury, passion, fatalism, and grim humor of young lives lived at the margins of a society they desperately wish to change.
Rafa, an Afro-Cuban orphan, moves to Havana with nothing to his name and falls into a job at a café. He is soon drawn into a web of bizarre, ever-shifting entanglements with his boss’s son, the charismatic Renato, leader of the counterrevolutionary group “Los Injected Ones,” which is planning a violent overthrow of the Castro government during Pope John Paul II's upcoming visit.
When Renato goes missing, Rafa’s search for his friend takes him through various haunts in Havana: from an AIDS sanatorium, to the guest rooms of tourist hotels, to the outskirts of the capital, where he enters a phantasmagorical slum cobbled together from the city’s detritus by Los Injected Ones.
A novel of cascading prose that captures a nation in slow collapse, Sacrificio is a visionary work, capturing the fury, passion, fatalism, and grim humor of young lives lived at the margins of a society they desperately wish to change.
456 pages, Hardcover
First published November 6, 2022
55 people are currently reading
5308 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
September 2, 2022
I was given an advanced copy of the audiobook by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book was very dense and a little difficult to understand as someone that has very limited knowledge of Cuba in the 1990's. It required me to do some outside research to be able to understand the HIV history in Cuba.
I loved the historical swap and reimagination of the Los Frikis as counterrevolutionaries. But this book and its narrator were dry, it failed to capture my attention - I could not get into the story. I think this book is for an audience that I am not a part of - but nonetheless the author's writing is impeccable.
This book was very dense and a little difficult to understand as someone that has very limited knowledge of Cuba in the 1990's. It required me to do some outside research to be able to understand the HIV history in Cuba.
I loved the historical swap and reimagination of the Los Frikis as counterrevolutionaries. But this book and its narrator were dry, it failed to capture my attention - I could not get into the story. I think this book is for an audience that I am not a part of - but nonetheless the author's writing is impeccable.
December 16, 2022
a complete slog. masterful writing, but without any awareness of perspective, character, or what could have made its story compelling. would have been two stars but the ending is a resounding spit in the face
January 9, 2023
There are many moving parts to Mestre-Reed’s storytelling and although this is at times a challenging read, it pays off.
The physicality of Havana, parts of Cuba and the self-made slum/aerie is present, while to contrast, a theme of dissociation, echo, and never quite touching the bodies one desires occurs frequently. However, when ill bodies and sex do turn up, Mestre-Reed writes in a way that allows a kind of explosive attention.
Rafa is constantly questioning truth and trust. There are intertextual moments and references to collaging bricolage writing as well as the many makeshift DIY objects or homes that people put together, to survive, or as counter revolutionaries.
Part of the success of this book is that Mestre-Reed does not exoticise Cuba,
while still creating a unique and magical narrative where temporary autonomous zones of resistance exist. As a reader, shifting uncertainties are tempered by time spent with Rafa and his internal thoughts, fears and feelings.
The physicality of Havana, parts of Cuba and the self-made slum/aerie is present, while to contrast, a theme of dissociation, echo, and never quite touching the bodies one desires occurs frequently. However, when ill bodies and sex do turn up, Mestre-Reed writes in a way that allows a kind of explosive attention.
Rafa is constantly questioning truth and trust. There are intertextual moments and references to collaging bricolage writing as well as the many makeshift DIY objects or homes that people put together, to survive, or as counter revolutionaries.
Part of the success of this book is that Mestre-Reed does not exoticise Cuba,
while still creating a unique and magical narrative where temporary autonomous zones of resistance exist. As a reader, shifting uncertainties are tempered by time spent with Rafa and his internal thoughts, fears and feelings.
December 9, 2022
Gave up at 64%. There’s a good book in here but it shouldn’t be the work of the reader to find it.
October 5, 2022
Ernesto Mestre-Reed's Sacrificio is a magical story of rebellion against the powerful with any means necessary.
Rafa is an orphan in 1990s Cuba who finds himself welcomed home by his lover-turned-brother Nicolas. Both live at the fringes of society, with Rafa helping Nic's mother run her restaurant after she was abandoned by her Castro-Revolutionary husband, Pascual. But Nicolas finds himself diagnosed with HIV and sentenced to a life in one of Cuba's sidatorios - homes akin to prisons meant to quarantine those with AIDS from the general population. In revolt, Nicolas and his brother Renato meet a cast of undesirable characters and form a plan to counter Fidel's revolutionary dictatorship that targets LGBTQ+ people and people with AIDS. In doing so, this cast of characters uses the tools the state equips to oppress them against their own oppressors.
Sacrificio is a magical book with twists, turns, and plot lines that will massage your imagination. Each of the characters are complex and force the reader to struggle with both empathy and disgust. And Mestre-Reed does an incredible job giving a modern take on the classic magical realist form. Though challenging to read with a darkness at its heart, Sacrificio is not a book you should miss.
Rafa is an orphan in 1990s Cuba who finds himself welcomed home by his lover-turned-brother Nicolas. Both live at the fringes of society, with Rafa helping Nic's mother run her restaurant after she was abandoned by her Castro-Revolutionary husband, Pascual. But Nicolas finds himself diagnosed with HIV and sentenced to a life in one of Cuba's sidatorios - homes akin to prisons meant to quarantine those with AIDS from the general population. In revolt, Nicolas and his brother Renato meet a cast of undesirable characters and form a plan to counter Fidel's revolutionary dictatorship that targets LGBTQ+ people and people with AIDS. In doing so, this cast of characters uses the tools the state equips to oppress them against their own oppressors.
Sacrificio is a magical book with twists, turns, and plot lines that will massage your imagination. Each of the characters are complex and force the reader to struggle with both empathy and disgust. And Mestre-Reed does an incredible job giving a modern take on the classic magical realist form. Though challenging to read with a darkness at its heart, Sacrificio is not a book you should miss.
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December 2, 2022Now an Oprah Magazine Favorite Book Of 2022!
September 30, 2022
This title was a DNF for me. Lots of interesting things going on, but characters that left me cold. If you are interested in recent queer fiction from Cuba, you should definitely check this one out. I'm sure there are readers who will find it more engaging than I did.
January 29, 2023
An excellent example of a swimming pool book - reading it feels like diving into a swimming pool, and the world underwater is something else entirely. Immersive and overwhelming.
May 14, 2025
Sacrificio
is, among many things, a tale of startling political subterfuge, the revolt of the body, and the mutability of longing for both the physical and the untouchable. Set in 1998, the story follows a teenage Afro-Cuban boy named Rafa as he's pulled into the orbit of "the tragic Zúñigas", brothers Nicolás and Renato, whose counterrevolutionary natures flirt with his more placid disposition. And, more importantly, the kind of danger he can’t even conceive.
Against the backdrop of Cuba's communist oppression, Pope John Paul II's approaching visit is slyly fused with one final act of repudiation by a group that calls itself Los Injected Ones; a name that brings notoriety to the HIV-positive status branding them subhuman in the eyes of the law. Led by a man he can't bear to lose, Rafa's drawn into the epicenter of a merciless blast.
Mestre-Reed's exhilarating use of the Spanish tongue - particularly the many ways it teases and tweaks the text - is somewhat necessitated by the fact that English is "a language suited for a convocation of insects". But its main role seems to be a more profound affirmation of the voices we encounter. Their unruffled expressions of frustration and intimacy, which also help distinguish the native from the foreign, allow Rafa to brush against the muted rage and frenzy of the bodies he experiences, and which freely partake in this communal form of being.
And yet, the passion and need forever entangled with their limbs point to a melancholy that borders on apathy. Similarly, a veil of disaffection is pulled over Rafa's venture into a world of schemes and yearnings, but it speaks of the tension pricking his skin, not a lack of feeling. The contortions of the self are readily made out, the face remains vulnerable to expressions of doubt. In fact, with mounting force, the novel's air resembles the sultry, soporific breath of an imminent storm. Emotions crackle on the page, colliding with wit and manifold seductions, as narrative as they prove thematic.
Following the uneasy observation that Cubans are "becoming a nation of ghosts", Rafa turns into one in his own uncertain fashion, allowing the story's focus to veer away from the individual to present not the freckle, but the body as a whole. This leaves us glimpsing both the historical and the cultural, all the while relishing the earnestness with which Rafa regales both Nicolás and Renato - often to the detriment of his own senses. The timeline, likewise, stays true to the author's distinctive mode of storytelling, unfolding as coyly as two tangerine segments reluctantly parting flesh.
With much of the tale told both retrospectively and proactively, we're constantly in the throes of the unknown, its disarray, and the fervor brought on by the will to endure. And since the novel's dialogue is unshackled and free of quotation marks, the words that fall from dry lips blend into violent thoughts, bringing the psyche out into the open to create a rich topography of want and distrust.
Riddled with intricacy, Sacrificio presents a striking take on relationships, choosing not to affect them with civilized intimacy, but to leave them bare; a state that quickly points to the addictive nature of fallibility. Relations are never limited to the romantic, but more often than not lunge at the heart of the familial, feasting on a disharmony that fuels an entity much greater than the self.
As a result, the rawness we graze in its many forms emits a fierce hunger for intimacy: familial, sexual, romantic, civilian. But though carnality suffuses the narrative, it's largely denied the glorified ideals and sensual culminations of longing that often come to define it - with maybe one memorable exception.
Obsessions flare hotter the more sensationalistic and harrowing the young men's transgressions become, animating the slogans of la Revolución, the Directorate, the Visit, as well as the hushed, inexpressible sound bite of a looming cataclysm. Their echoes reveal the pulsation of a make-believe world, the result of the country's fictionalization of being.
Sacrificio's magnificent grasp of its multilayered intrigue further throttles our sense of anticipation, kneading the central socio-political experiment and its utopian myth in a bid to expel its delusion of shared individualism. Always at the heart of the narrative is the vision of mutiny; the shattering process of defining, and pursuing, freedom. More curiously still, we experience the impulse to love, pleasure, live among, and evolve into ghosts.
Somewhat redolent of Robin Hood's band of outlaws, the novel's revolutionaries are nonetheless more frenzied and less encumbered by constraints, both physical and cerebral. They recognize love as its own act of defiance, but its bodily expressions grapple with the space reserved for delirium.
Similarly, the war camp erected hundreds of feet in the air appears like a phantasmagoria, a fever dream bolstered by the notion of liberty. Ultimately, by the end of the novel's thrilling and calamitous journey, personal autonomy proves to be both life's aim and its most felt liability.
Against the backdrop of Cuba's communist oppression, Pope John Paul II's approaching visit is slyly fused with one final act of repudiation by a group that calls itself Los Injected Ones; a name that brings notoriety to the HIV-positive status branding them subhuman in the eyes of the law. Led by a man he can't bear to lose, Rafa's drawn into the epicenter of a merciless blast.
Mestre-Reed's exhilarating use of the Spanish tongue - particularly the many ways it teases and tweaks the text - is somewhat necessitated by the fact that English is "a language suited for a convocation of insects". But its main role seems to be a more profound affirmation of the voices we encounter. Their unruffled expressions of frustration and intimacy, which also help distinguish the native from the foreign, allow Rafa to brush against the muted rage and frenzy of the bodies he experiences, and which freely partake in this communal form of being.
And yet, the passion and need forever entangled with their limbs point to a melancholy that borders on apathy. Similarly, a veil of disaffection is pulled over Rafa's venture into a world of schemes and yearnings, but it speaks of the tension pricking his skin, not a lack of feeling. The contortions of the self are readily made out, the face remains vulnerable to expressions of doubt. In fact, with mounting force, the novel's air resembles the sultry, soporific breath of an imminent storm. Emotions crackle on the page, colliding with wit and manifold seductions, as narrative as they prove thematic.
Following the uneasy observation that Cubans are "becoming a nation of ghosts", Rafa turns into one in his own uncertain fashion, allowing the story's focus to veer away from the individual to present not the freckle, but the body as a whole. This leaves us glimpsing both the historical and the cultural, all the while relishing the earnestness with which Rafa regales both Nicolás and Renato - often to the detriment of his own senses. The timeline, likewise, stays true to the author's distinctive mode of storytelling, unfolding as coyly as two tangerine segments reluctantly parting flesh.
With much of the tale told both retrospectively and proactively, we're constantly in the throes of the unknown, its disarray, and the fervor brought on by the will to endure. And since the novel's dialogue is unshackled and free of quotation marks, the words that fall from dry lips blend into violent thoughts, bringing the psyche out into the open to create a rich topography of want and distrust.
Riddled with intricacy, Sacrificio presents a striking take on relationships, choosing not to affect them with civilized intimacy, but to leave them bare; a state that quickly points to the addictive nature of fallibility. Relations are never limited to the romantic, but more often than not lunge at the heart of the familial, feasting on a disharmony that fuels an entity much greater than the self.
As a result, the rawness we graze in its many forms emits a fierce hunger for intimacy: familial, sexual, romantic, civilian. But though carnality suffuses the narrative, it's largely denied the glorified ideals and sensual culminations of longing that often come to define it - with maybe one memorable exception.
Obsessions flare hotter the more sensationalistic and harrowing the young men's transgressions become, animating the slogans of la Revolución, the Directorate, the Visit, as well as the hushed, inexpressible sound bite of a looming cataclysm. Their echoes reveal the pulsation of a make-believe world, the result of the country's fictionalization of being.
Sacrificio's magnificent grasp of its multilayered intrigue further throttles our sense of anticipation, kneading the central socio-political experiment and its utopian myth in a bid to expel its delusion of shared individualism. Always at the heart of the narrative is the vision of mutiny; the shattering process of defining, and pursuing, freedom. More curiously still, we experience the impulse to love, pleasure, live among, and evolve into ghosts.
Somewhat redolent of Robin Hood's band of outlaws, the novel's revolutionaries are nonetheless more frenzied and less encumbered by constraints, both physical and cerebral. They recognize love as its own act of defiance, but its bodily expressions grapple with the space reserved for delirium.
Similarly, the war camp erected hundreds of feet in the air appears like a phantasmagoria, a fever dream bolstered by the notion of liberty. Ultimately, by the end of the novel's thrilling and calamitous journey, personal autonomy proves to be both life's aim and its most felt liability.
September 5, 2022
Sacraficio by Ernesto Mestre-Reed is a mesmerizing read. It's about Cuba during the AIDS crisis. It's told through interwoven back and forth stories of the main characters of how they all came to be. The main story is about Rafa and will he be able to find his friend Renato who has gone missing. You get portrait of Cuba during the late 90's with all the hardship of AIDS combined with the poverty of Cuba and what it does to the main characters and what they do to survive. This is a great novel for lgbtq reading groups and those interested in Cuba. Truly one one of the best lqtbq novels of the year. You really don't want to miss this one.
Read
November 22, 2022I’m shocked this is a DNF for me. I thought the content was going to be very interesting and compelling but there’s no easing the reader in here, things are happening to people and I don’t understand what things or who these folks are. It feels like picking up the second or third book in a series and just trying to jump in. Maybe this is for someone more knowledgeable than me? I have no idea.
January 10, 2023
Despite some slow side stories that distracted from the main plot, this was a challenging but fascinating read fictionalizing the real-life "Los Frikis"-- often HIV-positive, self-styled counter-revolutionaries in Cuba in the 1990s. I also came away from this book knowing more Cuban slang than I ever expected to learn!
Read
April 14, 2025Didn’t finish this. Thought it was going to be so good and right up my alley, but was so hard to get through and I’d dread my reading time because it’s just not enjoyable. So many interesting elements in the premises but the construction of the novel is confusing and not compelling. Total bummer.
November 17, 2022
I didn’t understand what was happening most of the time
September 17, 2022
*I received an audio review copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*
Sacrificio is a dense novel about identity and longing and a nation's collapse. We follow Rafa, an Afro-Cuban orphan who moved to Havana with nothing, and gets a job at a café where he gets pulled into a counterrevolutionary group called "Los Injected Ones".
The writing was beautiful and I loved the interspersion of Spanish. Mestre-Reed's descriptions in particular were evocative. That being said, I had a hard time following what was happening for the first 30% or so of the book because we were jumping around in time and even after I got the sense of time I still found myself losing the thread of the plot at times throughout the book. I'm not sure if it was the narration or if I would have had a similar problem if I read the physical book.
While the story on the surface is about Rafa's search for Renato, it is more a portrait of life in Havana in 1998. We see the daily lives of Cubans- their jobs and loves and struggles, and we see how they interact with the tourists in the city. We also see how HIV/AIDS affected the country. We learn early on that Renato is HIV positive and spent time living in a sanatorio. And eventually we see the counterrevolutionary group who is purposely infecting themselves with the virus. Cuba is not a country I know much about, so a lot of my enjoyment of this book was researching to figure out what was pure fiction and what was grounded in reality.
Overall, I think this was an interesting and incredibly ambitious novel, and while not all of it worked for me, I still recommend you check it out if it sounds interesting to you!
Sacrificio is a dense novel about identity and longing and a nation's collapse. We follow Rafa, an Afro-Cuban orphan who moved to Havana with nothing, and gets a job at a café where he gets pulled into a counterrevolutionary group called "Los Injected Ones".
The writing was beautiful and I loved the interspersion of Spanish. Mestre-Reed's descriptions in particular were evocative. That being said, I had a hard time following what was happening for the first 30% or so of the book because we were jumping around in time and even after I got the sense of time I still found myself losing the thread of the plot at times throughout the book. I'm not sure if it was the narration or if I would have had a similar problem if I read the physical book.
While the story on the surface is about Rafa's search for Renato, it is more a portrait of life in Havana in 1998. We see the daily lives of Cubans- their jobs and loves and struggles, and we see how they interact with the tourists in the city. We also see how HIV/AIDS affected the country. We learn early on that Renato is HIV positive and spent time living in a sanatorio. And eventually we see the counterrevolutionary group who is purposely infecting themselves with the virus. Cuba is not a country I know much about, so a lot of my enjoyment of this book was researching to figure out what was pure fiction and what was grounded in reality.
Overall, I think this was an interesting and incredibly ambitious novel, and while not all of it worked for me, I still recommend you check it out if it sounds interesting to you!
May 12, 2025
Sacrificio feels wholly original. The premise involves a revolutionary group infecting others with HIV as a form of protest, and delves into various kinds of relationships within and outside of that group. The prose is deft and evocative, while leaving the characters themselves at times feeling stilted and under-developed. It’s a little tough to chew and harder to swallow, but I think it’s worthwhile.
I’d recommend this to folks interested in literature about political revolutions and/or Cuba.
I’d recommend this to folks interested in literature about political revolutions and/or Cuba.
August 3, 2025
Almost 2 and a half years later I can finally say that I’ve finished this book! It really is a whole new world, and it’s interesting to get to know Cuba in the 90s. It unites family drama and a hectic political scene, which I love! It’s not an easy reading (at least not for me) but it’s definitely worth it
September 11, 2022
At beast it pulls in Graham Greene, though certainly doesn’t have his thrift of language.
September 19, 2022
This is one of those books that you'll remember the rest of your life. Sacrificio is 100% original and quite an education. Like many Americans, I'd have to say that I don't know a whole lot about Cuba so reading this book definitely helped to increase my world view and open my eyes a bit.
You can't have a book about Cuba without a revolution can you ? This is one such revolution in the nineties involving a pair of sexually ambiguous brothers and a wayward stranger, Rafa. The older brother takes the stranger under his wing and promptly moves him into the family home. Pretty soon after that Rafa begins to get wrapped up in the brothers plans to shake up the Cuban government by purposely infecting people with HIV.
To call this a "gay" novel, isn't quite correct. This is more a novel about poverty, corrupt government, political intrigue and of course, revolution. To the people in this book. sex is just a transaction you negotiate with another person to fulfill a bodily need. Whether you decide to have gay sex or straight sex, it doesn't define who you are. Grab this book, you'll be glad.
You can't have a book about Cuba without a revolution can you ? This is one such revolution in the nineties involving a pair of sexually ambiguous brothers and a wayward stranger, Rafa. The older brother takes the stranger under his wing and promptly moves him into the family home. Pretty soon after that Rafa begins to get wrapped up in the brothers plans to shake up the Cuban government by purposely infecting people with HIV.
To call this a "gay" novel, isn't quite correct. This is more a novel about poverty, corrupt government, political intrigue and of course, revolution. To the people in this book. sex is just a transaction you negotiate with another person to fulfill a bodily need. Whether you decide to have gay sex or straight sex, it doesn't define who you are. Grab this book, you'll be glad.
October 29, 2024
“That was the family’s art: seduction.”
― Ernesto Mestre-Reed, Sacrificio.
My very brief summary: With all apologies to Mr Mestre-Reed, Sacrificio is a difficult novel to summarize in a few sentences! That being said, Sacrificio is remarkable. Set against the backdrop of Cuba's harsh communist oppression, the AIDS crisis and the looming visit of Pope John Paul II, the main story follows Rafa, an orphan searching for his missing friend Renato. Interwoven are counterrevolutionary agitators, encounters with the secret police, government-mandated sanitoriums for AIDS patients and “Los Injected Ones,” people who purposefully infected themselves with HIV in a self-destructive act of rebellion and protest.
My hot take: I’m not sure that I’ve ever read anything quite like this. Taut and suspenseful, while bursting with love, lust, passion and intrigue, Mestre-Reed paints a mesmerizing portrait of Castro’s Cuba that I had certainly never envisioned.
― Ernesto Mestre-Reed, Sacrificio.
My very brief summary: With all apologies to Mr Mestre-Reed, Sacrificio is a difficult novel to summarize in a few sentences! That being said, Sacrificio is remarkable. Set against the backdrop of Cuba's harsh communist oppression, the AIDS crisis and the looming visit of Pope John Paul II, the main story follows Rafa, an orphan searching for his missing friend Renato. Interwoven are counterrevolutionary agitators, encounters with the secret police, government-mandated sanitoriums for AIDS patients and “Los Injected Ones,” people who purposefully infected themselves with HIV in a self-destructive act of rebellion and protest.
My hot take: I’m not sure that I’ve ever read anything quite like this. Taut and suspenseful, while bursting with love, lust, passion and intrigue, Mestre-Reed paints a mesmerizing portrait of Castro’s Cuba that I had certainly never envisioned.
December 14, 2023
I am not Cuban, but I am a life-long admirer of Cuban culture as a student and as a college professor of Latin American literature. I have never been a supporter of the Cuban revolution: this I must say before writing anything else. I do not wish my negative remarks about the author’s work as sprung from the defense of those who have turned Cuba into the tragedy it is today.
Ernesto Mestre-Reed’s SACRIFICIO takes its name from a constant theme in Castro’s revolution, where citizens have been asked to sacrifice for the sake of a self-serving political system since 1959. With the downfall of the Soviet Union’s subsidies the call was made for even more sacrifice to a revolution that has nothing to offer, in Fidel Castro’s own words, but sacrifice. Yes, life expectancy increased for people to endure even longer lifetimes of deprivation; literacy for citizens to learn to read only officially authorized documents and the regime’s own news media propaganda; health care in a system where physicians are rented to other countries and hospitals lack even gauzes for wounds). It is in the midst of that disaster that Rafael begins his life in the Havana metropolis of the socialist paradise.
As Kirkus Reviews summarizes the plot, Mestre-Reed explores this uncertain time while also telling a story about Cuba’s underground gay and HIV-positive population. Rafa, who's come to Havana from rural eastern Cuba, goes home one night with a man named Nicolás, becoming entwined with him, his brother, Renato, and their mother, Cecilia
This novel reads like a haunting nightmare, a text that the reader must finish only out of the need to find out, finally, alas, how it ends after jumping the hurdles of tiresome regurgitations of situations that in the fifth iteration in no way add to the reader’s knowledge of the characters or its eventual outcome. Maybe a more capable editor at Soho Press would have been able to shave off the excess and catch statements such as “to lay her prostate by the sink while it overflowed,” perhaps meant to say “to lie there prostrate.”
The novel suffers from a weakness typical of faux-testimonial fiction written by people who have no direct knowledge of the situations. Mestre-Reed masterfully combines historical fact with fiction, but the constant harping on the errors of the revolution turns the novel into an ornamented unrelenting denunciation of the regime. There are subtle ways to present a character’s dilemma caused by an oppressor rather than pamphleteering at every possible point.
As I read the novel I thought of Cuban authors who have denounced the uncertainty and the official abuse because they lived through the stifling limitations and the failures of the Cuban socialist system: Reinaldo Arenas, Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s MAP DRAWN BY A SPY, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez’s DIRTY TRILOGY OF HAVANA, Eliseo Alberto Diego’s CARACOL BEACH and INFORME SOBRE MÍ MISMO. I also thought of those who suffered ostracism by the suffocating revolution bent on crushing the non-binary personality, such as Severo Sarduy (THE BIRDS AT THE BEACH) and José Lezama Lima (PARADISO).
SACRIFICIO’s unabashed intent on denouncing above creating a literary world fails to reach the literary level of those other Cuban writers.
Mestre-Reed’s penchant for including Cuban Spanish phrases makes interferes with the reader’s immersion into the story, however interesting or repetitive it might be. The inclusion of such idiomatic expressions adds a particularly Cuban touch to his style, but the English monolingual reader has to stop to go look up the meaning.
SACRIFICIO sacrifices immersion into the story through drowning by excessive hammering of intentions and character personality attributes. It is a confusingly ambitious work that drags the reader down a path that forks out into two passages only to rejoin after a deceivingly circular trek to retrace steps with one extra foot. To the author’s credit, nonetheless, no string is left untied at the end of the 456 pages. This, however, prompts the question, couldn’t the loose ends have been attached earlier and with fewer strands in no more than 256?
January 18, 2023
They say that a man whose bleached bones are strewn in the rain somewhere has suffered the ultimate indignity. But what of the opposite? What if we were meant to become too much of this life? What if we were to become all flesh for a moment, the mind severed from its capacity to sit in judgment and control…
Set in Cuba before and immediately following Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1998, Sacrificio follows Rafa, a dark-skinned Cuban orphan, trying to scratch out a life in Havana. Castro himself called this “the special period in time of peace,” and asked for people to make collective and individual sacrifices in the name of the Revolution. The Cuban economy lays in shatters following the fall of the Soviet Union. The life’s bare necessities – food, clothes, and even paper – are hard to be found, even for those with connections.
Rafa is scratching out a living with his boyfriend Nicolas, Nicolas’s mother Cecilia, and younger brother Renato. Cecilia runs an illicit paladar, or private restaurant, from her home thanks to connections with Comandante Juan. Lots of things start getting weird – first with Nicolas, who we find has AIDS is then mandated to live in a sanitarium. Then with a foreign visitor, Oliver, who essentially is a domestic spy for the Castro government, and lastly with Renato, who after his brother dies, forms a cult-like group looking to stage a revolt while the eyes of the world are on Cuba during the pope’s visit.
Sacrificio is a surreal, captivating, but intensely odd novel. The gritty acridness of want vividly punctuates its text. The reader feels like he or she is on the dirty bus to Santiago, lounging in the foul henhouse, or cleaning dirty dishes in the paladar. Yet, I found Sacrificio to be too twisty for its own good. Its meandering ups and downs led me to be confused about what exactly was going on – requiring at times re-reads or re-re-reads! It appeared to me as if the first half of the book – which I found much easier to digest -- received much editing attention that maybe the second part of the novel would have benefitted from. I also found the general lack of quotation marks a little off putting at first – was that said or was that a thought?
Generally recommended for anyone who may be interested in life in Cuba or a novel with non-traditional gay characters.
Set in Cuba before and immediately following Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1998, Sacrificio follows Rafa, a dark-skinned Cuban orphan, trying to scratch out a life in Havana. Castro himself called this “the special period in time of peace,” and asked for people to make collective and individual sacrifices in the name of the Revolution. The Cuban economy lays in shatters following the fall of the Soviet Union. The life’s bare necessities – food, clothes, and even paper – are hard to be found, even for those with connections.
Rafa is scratching out a living with his boyfriend Nicolas, Nicolas’s mother Cecilia, and younger brother Renato. Cecilia runs an illicit paladar, or private restaurant, from her home thanks to connections with Comandante Juan. Lots of things start getting weird – first with Nicolas, who we find has AIDS is then mandated to live in a sanitarium. Then with a foreign visitor, Oliver, who essentially is a domestic spy for the Castro government, and lastly with Renato, who after his brother dies, forms a cult-like group looking to stage a revolt while the eyes of the world are on Cuba during the pope’s visit.
Sacrificio is a surreal, captivating, but intensely odd novel. The gritty acridness of want vividly punctuates its text. The reader feels like he or she is on the dirty bus to Santiago, lounging in the foul henhouse, or cleaning dirty dishes in the paladar. Yet, I found Sacrificio to be too twisty for its own good. Its meandering ups and downs led me to be confused about what exactly was going on – requiring at times re-reads or re-re-reads! It appeared to me as if the first half of the book – which I found much easier to digest -- received much editing attention that maybe the second part of the novel would have benefitted from. I also found the general lack of quotation marks a little off putting at first – was that said or was that a thought?
Generally recommended for anyone who may be interested in life in Cuba or a novel with non-traditional gay characters.
June 24, 2024
There are several approaches a writer can take when crafting a story set in a turbulent historical time. One is to focus on a very character driven, personal or familial, journey with the event in the background. Or, you can use your characters as chess pieces to explore a period you're trying to shed light onto. There are many times these can overlap. However, "Sacrificio" can't quite decide what path to take resulting in a novel that despite being written as a first person account feels radically detached.
On the one hand it seems to want to be a tale of family, blood and found. It wants to be a story about the movement and culture. It wants to be a story about a specific snapshot in a time. But in trying to jump around along with having a back and forth linear look that is even cylindrical at times, it feels more like a hazy blur more often times than not. I had to chuckle about a line about how Castro could make people go in circles until they didn't know what side they were actually playing for as it was a question I had been asking about the direction of this novel that felt more abstract than a device to intrigue.
This is really a shame as there are many very poignant moments, information that I certainly had never known, was laid bare. There was a lot of love, care, and passion between the characters. There was humor and youthful ambition. There was social and global commentary. One line I praise it for highlighting was that how revolutions aren't about one great movement or several moments. It's a series of losses and victories that drag across a time and may never even really have an ending. And, if it does, it is impossible to accredit it to whatever finishing blow moment brings the victory or utter defeat clear. for that matter, the result itself is often in limbo.
It was a novel that had an important subject, but it failed to connect with me either on a level of being invested in the characters or carry me along the narrative in a heavily invested manner.
On the one hand it seems to want to be a tale of family, blood and found. It wants to be a story about the movement and culture. It wants to be a story about a specific snapshot in a time. But in trying to jump around along with having a back and forth linear look that is even cylindrical at times, it feels more like a hazy blur more often times than not. I had to chuckle about a line about how Castro could make people go in circles until they didn't know what side they were actually playing for as it was a question I had been asking about the direction of this novel that felt more abstract than a device to intrigue.
This is really a shame as there are many very poignant moments, information that I certainly had never known, was laid bare. There was a lot of love, care, and passion between the characters. There was humor and youthful ambition. There was social and global commentary. One line I praise it for highlighting was that how revolutions aren't about one great movement or several moments. It's a series of losses and victories that drag across a time and may never even really have an ending. And, if it does, it is impossible to accredit it to whatever finishing blow moment brings the victory or utter defeat clear. for that matter, the result itself is often in limbo.
It was a novel that had an important subject, but it failed to connect with me either on a level of being invested in the characters or carry me along the narrative in a heavily invested manner.
October 18, 2022
Ugh I wanted to love this. Ever since reading Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis earlier this year I’ve been desperate to read more semi-historical stories about queer people against the backdrop of political unrest (specific I know).
This book follows Rafa as he begins working for and embedding himself in the life of a family in Havana in 1990s Cuba. Against the backdrop of el periodo especial - an extended economic crisis under the dictatorship of Fidel Castro in the 1990s - Rafa gets swept into a counter revolutionary group called Los Frikos alongside the two brothers he meets, Nicolas and Renato. This counter revolutionary group decides the method to bring down the government is by injecting themselves with HIV and spreading the disease (amongst other methods).
Loosely based on history, there were Cuban citizens in the 1990s that willingly injected themselves with HIV in order to gain the services provided in sidatorios where the Cuban government segregated HIV positive citizens, Sacrificio reimagines them as counterrevolutionaries.
I had such high hopes for the concept of this book. The symbolism of Sacrifice was so powerful as both Rafa, Renato, even Renato and Nic’s parents Cecilia and Pascual, sacrifice so much for family and for their political beliefs.
To the crux of the issue, I think this book is hard to read. The time jumping and non linear chapter setup was confusing. The author introduces about a dozen characters onto the reader in the first 50 pages and then never really develops any of them? I never connected with Nic, Renato, or even Rafa despite reading 400+ pages from his perspective. The politics were challenging to follow although I’ll blame some of this on a terrible U.S. education system. And to add complexity (although I understand why this choice was made) Sacrificio heavily inserts Spanish words and Cuban slang amidst the text with little to no context. I’m not saying any author has to cater to any type of reader but I do think this is just hard to read if you don’t know Spanish. I struggled and I took college Spanish.
My hopes were so high, but this just didn’t work for me. I’m certain it could be a five star read for someone who has either more political context on Cuba in the 1990s or for someone who can find a deeper connection with these characters. But alas it wasn’t for me.
This book follows Rafa as he begins working for and embedding himself in the life of a family in Havana in 1990s Cuba. Against the backdrop of el periodo especial - an extended economic crisis under the dictatorship of Fidel Castro in the 1990s - Rafa gets swept into a counter revolutionary group called Los Frikos alongside the two brothers he meets, Nicolas and Renato. This counter revolutionary group decides the method to bring down the government is by injecting themselves with HIV and spreading the disease (amongst other methods).
Loosely based on history, there were Cuban citizens in the 1990s that willingly injected themselves with HIV in order to gain the services provided in sidatorios where the Cuban government segregated HIV positive citizens, Sacrificio reimagines them as counterrevolutionaries.
I had such high hopes for the concept of this book. The symbolism of Sacrifice was so powerful as both Rafa, Renato, even Renato and Nic’s parents Cecilia and Pascual, sacrifice so much for family and for their political beliefs.
To the crux of the issue, I think this book is hard to read. The time jumping and non linear chapter setup was confusing. The author introduces about a dozen characters onto the reader in the first 50 pages and then never really develops any of them? I never connected with Nic, Renato, or even Rafa despite reading 400+ pages from his perspective. The politics were challenging to follow although I’ll blame some of this on a terrible U.S. education system. And to add complexity (although I understand why this choice was made) Sacrificio heavily inserts Spanish words and Cuban slang amidst the text with little to no context. I’m not saying any author has to cater to any type of reader but I do think this is just hard to read if you don’t know Spanish. I struggled and I took college Spanish.
My hopes were so high, but this just didn’t work for me. I’m certain it could be a five star read for someone who has either more political context on Cuba in the 1990s or for someone who can find a deeper connection with these characters. But alas it wasn’t for me.
May 7, 2023
To be honest, this is the story of a guy who falls in love with a revolutionary man. Ernesto's cascading prose brings to life the struggles and determination of lives lived during times of revolution and post-revolution. The writing is dense, but beautiful, like a thicket of wildflowers that takes time to traverse. But... the heavy writing rewards you by transporting you to another world. It's Cuba, but not from some sepia-toned movie with old cars driving along the sea.
Of note, it's interesting how the author dealt with themes like violence, loss, and identity. Most LGBTQ stories about HIV, it's all about death and shame and trauma, and it's nice to read about people who REFUSE to be thrown away. Some may shirk at the measures they take to keep from disappearing, but it further begs the reader to question 'revolution' and 'sacrifice' as a whole, as philosophical concepts.
It is recurring throughout the book... these questions about 'sacrifice' and 'revolution'... what is it good for... who does it benefit... what comes after. At times, I (like other characters) was asking myself if Rafa is searching for a group of revolutionaries or a cult. But honestly, what's the difference?
Also, 10% of this book is in Spanish, which I took great delight in.
Of note, it's interesting how the author dealt with themes like violence, loss, and identity. Most LGBTQ stories about HIV, it's all about death and shame and trauma, and it's nice to read about people who REFUSE to be thrown away. Some may shirk at the measures they take to keep from disappearing, but it further begs the reader to question 'revolution' and 'sacrifice' as a whole, as philosophical concepts.
It is recurring throughout the book... these questions about 'sacrifice' and 'revolution'... what is it good for... who does it benefit... what comes after. At times, I (like other characters) was asking myself if Rafa is searching for a group of revolutionaries or a cult. But honestly, what's the difference?
Also, 10% of this book is in Spanish, which I took great delight in.
August 10, 2023
On the one hand, this is brilliantly written. Mestre-Reed casts a rich and visceral spell, of the vibrant despair of Cuba, of the peculiar dynamics of that collectivist culture and the subculture of gay and bisexual men who live within it. It was elegantly crafted from the first page through to the one hundred and sixty fourth page, which was when I set the book down, sighed, and was done with it.
The challenge, as is so often the case with such meticulously crafted writing, is that the story and characters weren't the compelling heart of the book. Moment after moment, vignette after vignette, all lovely or horrible of themselves...but without flow or evident purpose. Characters eddy and swirl about, and there was occasionally a sense that something might be starting to happen, but then we'd be back into a reflection, or off on another tangent, or describing a plant or object in exquisite detail.
There are times when the art of writing and the art of long form storytelling diverge, and this was one of them.
A two point eight.
The challenge, as is so often the case with such meticulously crafted writing, is that the story and characters weren't the compelling heart of the book. Moment after moment, vignette after vignette, all lovely or horrible of themselves...but without flow or evident purpose. Characters eddy and swirl about, and there was occasionally a sense that something might be starting to happen, but then we'd be back into a reflection, or off on another tangent, or describing a plant or object in exquisite detail.
There are times when the art of writing and the art of long form storytelling diverge, and this was one of them.
A two point eight.
April 7, 2023
If I were to rate this based on writing style alone, I think it would get 4-5 stars, especially if I had a better understanding of Cuba in the 90s. The narration is so poetic and haunting. Sadly I think I lacked the depth of knowledge to understand a lot of the history there. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it - it was just dense.
There were a lot of complex characters - Nicolas and Renato both have this undeniable lure and rugged nature that makes them natural leaders…but they’re also selfish and maniacally reckless so i was constantly unsure of how I felt about them.
I was a little underwhelmed by Rafa’s character development but I feel like it very well could have been intentional - bc of his orphaned childhood, he’s made to seem like somewhat of a fly on the wall the entire time. Both intriguing and frustrating. I wanted to know more about what he was actually feeling.
Altogether I’m glad I read this - I just wish I knew more so I could get the true effect!
There were a lot of complex characters - Nicolas and Renato both have this undeniable lure and rugged nature that makes them natural leaders…but they’re also selfish and maniacally reckless so i was constantly unsure of how I felt about them.
I was a little underwhelmed by Rafa’s character development but I feel like it very well could have been intentional - bc of his orphaned childhood, he’s made to seem like somewhat of a fly on the wall the entire time. Both intriguing and frustrating. I wanted to know more about what he was actually feeling.
Altogether I’m glad I read this - I just wish I knew more so I could get the true effect!
July 3, 2023
A devastating and complex story of Rafa, enveloped by his love of brothers Nicolas and Renato, as they plan to overthrow Castro and the Cuban government in 1998 during Pope John Paul II’s visit. Sacrificio paints a picture of Los Injected Ones, who see their self-sacrifice as a counterrevolutionary act.
Mestre-Reed brings life and context to the sanitariums opened by the Cuban government to limit the spread of HIV/AIDS and the pains of Los Injected Ones in their position at the fringe of bustling Havana. His prose is a thing of beauty—slipping in Spanish phrases and descriptions that make landmarks in Habana Vieja, like La Catedral and Calle Obispo and the vibrance evident through the page.
For additional context on Cuba’s AIDS policy and sanitarium life, I recommend reading Walking in Havana by Elena Schwolsky before reading Sacrificio.
Mestre-Reed brings life and context to the sanitariums opened by the Cuban government to limit the spread of HIV/AIDS and the pains of Los Injected Ones in their position at the fringe of bustling Havana. His prose is a thing of beauty—slipping in Spanish phrases and descriptions that make landmarks in Habana Vieja, like La Catedral and Calle Obispo and the vibrance evident through the page.
For additional context on Cuba’s AIDS policy and sanitarium life, I recommend reading Walking in Havana by Elena Schwolsky before reading Sacrificio.
March 23, 2025
2.5⭐️ Took me forever to get through, I kept feeling like it was a chore to pick up.
The writing itself was insightful, well crafted, and beautiful. The setting had such potential to be incredible and immersive - but without a riveting or structured plot OR exploration of the moral struggles of characters I was let down. I kept waiting for somebody to have any sort of issue with the situation at hand (considering how devastating it is??) but I can’t recall a description of a single character experiencing grief, sadness, horror, fear, or anything other than apathy and disassociation in this novel. This fits the situation to an extent, as I understand that we all deal with the horrors of the world in odd ways to cope, but over the course of two years I expected more exploration of the character’s emotions.
The writing itself was insightful, well crafted, and beautiful. The setting had such potential to be incredible and immersive - but without a riveting or structured plot OR exploration of the moral struggles of characters I was let down. I kept waiting for somebody to have any sort of issue with the situation at hand (considering how devastating it is??) but I can’t recall a description of a single character experiencing grief, sadness, horror, fear, or anything other than apathy and disassociation in this novel. This fits the situation to an extent, as I understand that we all deal with the horrors of the world in odd ways to cope, but over the course of two years I expected more exploration of the character’s emotions.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 24, 2024
I get the reviews saying it was tough to finish because it was for me as well. I'm sure something integral could have been lost in translation? I enjoyed the revolutionary spirit driving the characters in their morbid desperation. Not many readers seem to know much about Cuban or Latin American revolutions in general - and I'm lucky to have that background as it helped me at least get a feel for the motivation of the characters. This is a debut novel and the style at least for me was the best part. Richly woven with a very flow of consciousness narration at times but is that not the chaos of drugs, death, disease, and revolutions? I'll read his next work for sure.
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