Nada by Carmen Leforet
This book was a great read and set in a very familiar environment, I studied abroad in Barcelona last semester! I really enjoyed the writing style and reading a book set in a place that I have been – it really helped me to better picture the characters of the novel. The story largely follows the tale of Andrea, a young woman who arrives in Barcelona looking to start a new life as a student. As a Political Science student, I found the depictions of Francoist Spain to be particularly poignant and it greatly increased my enjoyment of the book. Nada goes to live with some relatives of her mother and is brought into one of the most insane families that I have ever read about. They are unbelievably dysfunctional, and all of them desperately need long term and intensive therapy. This chaotic family life is portrayed against the backdrop of the desperation and poverty experienced within Spain at the time. This juxtaposition of a deeply dysfunctional family against the backdrop of ...