Book Review: Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton

Next Year in Havana

by Chanel Cleeton

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After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity--and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution...

Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest--until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary...

Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa's last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth. 

Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba's tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she'll need the lessons of her grandmother's past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

… there’s a faint sheen of gray that adorns the landscape as though the entire city needs a good scrubbing. Havana is like a woman who was grand once and has fallen on hard times, and yet hints of her former brilliance remain, traces of an era since passed, a photograph faded by time and circumstance, its edges crumbling to dust.

I feel as though I’ve become a point of curiosity, an exhibit like the island of crocodiles at the Havana Zoo, those mighty animals sunning their backs with contempt for the gawking tourists and locals who point and exclaim over their size. Being a Perez in Havana— one of the sugar queens— is akin to wondering if you should charge admission for the window into your life…

There’s a different level of poverty in Cuba that suggests that not only is the deck stacked against you, but someone keeps stealing all the cards.

Terrible things rarely happen all at once… They’re incremental, so people don’t realize how bad things have gotten until it’s too late.

My Review:

I confess to blatant ignorance about Cuba, past or present.  Before picking up this exceptionally detailed account, my accumulated knowledge about Cuba was limited to a vague memory of the rafters, something about JFK and the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and that Fidel Castro had been an oppressive communist dictator who gave long boring speeches that he forced his citizens to listen to for hours on end in the heat and sun, I remember my severely strict sixth-grade teacher fervently pounding that last fact home and later putting on a test.  I also have a vivid memory of looking at a picture of the heavily reviled man with an unkempt beard and dressed in green fatigues and a billed cap and thinking him an unhinged monster; an opinion that apparently was deeply imprinted on my gray matter as it has held through to the present day.

Chanel Cleeton’s highly descriptive and epic story was written in dual timelines and from a dual POV, and I enjoyed the juxtaposition.  Sixty-years after her then nineteen-year-old grandmother had fled a dangerous and chaotic Cuba with her family, Marisol takes a trip to Cuba to spread her grandmother’s ashes and hopefully learn about her family history while traveling under the guise of a journalistic junket to gather information for a tourism article about Cuba. Careful what you wish for - she uncovered dark secrets that her beloved grandmother had never hinted it, as well as stunning revelations concerning her family tree.  

The storylines were lushly detailed and swirling with atmosphere, and could easily be deployed as a fully fleshed-out screenplay.  The emotional tone was fraught with tension and heavy with angst.  I could have done with about one hundred fewer pages repeatedly outlining the abuses and folly of past and present political systems, as politics are just not my jam.  However, the examples of basic day-to-day challenges the politically polarized Cuban citizens endured and continue to struggle with carried considerable more impact for me and were expertly executed.  I have been schooled, and in a significantly more entertaining manner than my harsh and unyielding sixth-grader teacher could have ever aspired to.  

Empress DJ

About The Author

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Chanel Cleeton is the USA Today bestselling author of Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick for Next Year in Havana. Originally from Florida, Chanel grew up on stories of her family's exodus from Cuba following the events of the Cuban Revolution. Her passion for politics and history continued during her years spent studying in England where she earned a bachelor's degree in International Relations from Richmond, The American International University in London and a master's degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics & Political Science. Chanel also received her Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law. She loves to travel and has lived in the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia.