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A review by natilarosa
The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa
3.0
Not an easy book to give a review to.
The story is written in the perspective of a man. He talked about his life, which itself doesn’t seem too exciting to him. The only thing that makes it intresting, that keeps the reader intrigued, the main plot of the point, is the women he falls in love with. She is a mystery also to the reader, because the only think we really know about her, is that she is (in most parts) beautiful and “a bad girl”. We rarely get to know anything about her personality or good traits, or why he actually fell in love with her, except her beauty.
Oh and the worst part for me- the first chapter. When the author starts to sexualise this (at the time of writing) little, 13 year old girl. Yes the protagonist was also younger (I think 15/16) but did the author really have to mention her breasts in almost every second sentence? Just seems wrong.
Okay those are the very very negative aspects about this book in my opinion.
But something he does surprisingly well, is depicting cultures without stereotyping too much, without even saying too much. But the books plays in Peru, Paris, Japan, London, Spain and you just feel transferred into the spaces (time and location).
I also think that his friendships are depicted rather nice and not superficial (which came to a shock to me because of his constant superficial gaze towards the bad girl) and he even has a female friend.
The book touches on class and socialisation if you want it to. You can read a lot into why the bad girl did what she did and it sparked amazing discussions. I don’t think I will forget the book anytime soon.
The story is written in the perspective of a man. He talked about his life, which itself doesn’t seem too exciting to him. The only thing that makes it intresting, that keeps the reader intrigued, the main plot of the point, is the women he falls in love with. She is a mystery also to the reader, because the only think we really know about her, is that she is (in most parts) beautiful and “a bad girl”. We rarely get to know anything about her personality or good traits, or why he actually fell in love with her, except her beauty.
Oh and the worst part for me- the first chapter. When the author starts to sexualise this (at the time of writing) little, 13 year old girl. Yes the protagonist was also younger (I think 15/16) but did the author really have to mention her breasts in almost every second sentence? Just seems wrong.
Okay those are the very very negative aspects about this book in my opinion.
But something he does surprisingly well, is depicting cultures without stereotyping too much, without even saying too much. But the books plays in Peru, Paris, Japan, London, Spain and you just feel transferred into the spaces (time and location).
I also think that his friendships are depicted rather nice and not superficial (which came to a shock to me because of his constant superficial gaze towards the bad girl) and he even has a female friend.
The book touches on class and socialisation if you want it to. You can read a lot into why the bad girl did what she did and it sparked amazing discussions. I don’t think I will forget the book anytime soon.