A review by oncemorewithreading
The Liars of Mariposa Island by Jennifer Mathieu
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
This was my first Jennifer Mathieu book and I absolutely loved it! It was well written with real characters. Elena was a trapped young girl who wanted to be able to live her life but couldn’t because of her over-bearing mother Caridad, who is still living with the trauma from her childhood of living in Cuba. Her brother Joaquin has the freedom to come and goes as he wants but still struggles with balancing work, relationships and trying to help Elena escape his mother’s abusive behaviour.
This book is told from each of their perspectives with Caridad’s focusing on her past. Most of it is told from Elena’s POV with the final third being from Joaquin’s. I really enjoy multi-perspective books and this one was perfect. It allowed you to learn more about each character and watch their development.
However I do feel like the ending could have been better and is the main reason that this book doesn’t get a five star review. Whilst I was happy for Joaquin, I felt like Elena honestly deserved a better ending. I don’t know if that’s because I felt myself being more attached to Elena but I wanted a happy ending for her.
This book is a lot darker that I thought it would be and there are a lot of triggers in this book so please be aware of this before picking this book up!
This was my first Jennifer Mathieu book and I absolutely loved it! It was well written with real characters. Elena was a trapped young girl who wanted to be able to live her life but couldn’t because of her over-bearing mother Caridad, who is still living with the trauma from her childhood of living in Cuba. Her brother Joaquin has the freedom to come and goes as he wants but still struggles with balancing work, relationships and trying to help Elena escape his mother’s abusive behaviour.
This book is told from each of their perspectives with Caridad’s focusing on her past. Most of it is told from Elena’s POV with the final third being from Joaquin’s. I really enjoy multi-perspective books and this one was perfect. It allowed you to learn more about each character and watch their development.
However I do feel like the ending could have been better and is the main reason that this book doesn’t get a five star review. Whilst I was happy for Joaquin, I felt like Elena honestly deserved a better ending. I don’t know if that’s because I felt myself being more attached to Elena but I wanted a happy ending for her.
This book is a lot darker that I thought it would be and there are a lot of triggers in this book so please be aware of this before picking this book up!