cover image No Me Alcanzara la Vida = A Lifetime Is Not Enough

No Me Alcanzara la Vida = A Lifetime Is Not Enough

Celia Del Palacio. Suma, $19.99 (499pp) ISBN 978-970-58-0313-0

In her first novel, Del Palacio, a published historian and poet, showcases her fascination with the history of her native Guadalajara. The young Sofia Trujillo escapes creditors and public derision following the murder of her ne'er-do-well husband by fleeing from the family ranch in provincial Durango. In Guadalajara, she finds literary salons, a lover who is a revolutionary poet, and all of the political and social turmoil of Mexico in 1859, a period of profound reform. Meanwhile, a contemporary doctoral student researching literary societies in 19th-century Guadalajara is led into Sofia's world, and her destiny is ultimately intermingled with that of the historical characters. With the tone of a sweeping epic, this is a historical romance with the emphasis on the historical-del Palacio has opted to indulge in a constellation of names, historical detail, and tired literary contrivances rather than salacious bodice ripping. An optional purchase suitable for libraries and bookstores where Mexican historical fiction is popular.-Carolyn Kost, Stevenson Sch. Lib., Pebble Beach, CA (The Undocile Docile)Pe\xF1asco, Rosa. Paula is a middle-aged Spanish woman who stumbles into an Internet sex chatroom catering to S&M aficionados. Although shocked by the rough language and particularly offended by the sexist treatment of women, she keeps coming back and eventually starts participating. She meets an alluring master, AMOSAPIENS, who begins teaching her the complex rules of S&M. As the novel opens, Paula has finally agreed to meet AMOSAPIENS in person, a meeting that ends in a sex club in Barcelona, The novel serves to explore a booming S&M industry in a large urban setting, but the plentiful sexual descriptions are long and rather repetitive and an ending that clearly intents to shock the reader with detailed sexual acts seems rather trite. Most of the novel consists of Paula's chat conversations with AMOSAPIENS and with other men who remain her anonymous teachers of this sexual practice, a narrative device that is the novel's weakest characteristic. Recommended for libraries serving mature readers or where erotic literature is popular.-Rafael Ocasio, Agnes Scott Coll., Decatur, GA