The House Of Broken Angels
Written and Narrated By: Luis Alberto Urrea
Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
Five stars! No, six! No, ten! Twenty stars for this BEAUTIFUL book!!!
When you first get into The House of Broken Angels, you start getting the sinking feeling that you’re going to be getting every Latino stereotype known to man. It has gang thugs, illegals, Mexican mothers with their huaraches being thrown at someone in anger. It has a character named La Gloriosa because she’s the very essence of lovely womanhood. And it has the patriarch, Big Angel, who, after his mother’s funeral, decides he will die with the coming of his birthday, when all are gathered around him.
But you go deeper; you watch and listen as the characters reveal themselves, their greatest dreams, their deepest fears. Urrea masterfully, MASTERFULLY develops The House of Broken Angels so that it becomes an experience of history, of family, of love in its purest and its most broken forms. This book has some gorgeous writing in it!
My sister chose this for our audiobook club, and I loved it so very much that I browbeat my husband into reading the book (book? Huh? Whazza?!?). He loved it as much as I did, and our conversation since then has been peppered with statements such as, “Watch it, puppet!” and exclamations about humanity such as, “Chuds!”
You’ll find the lowest of Hispanic culture, with drug use and violence, but you’ll find the highest of the culture too with the bonds of family. I especially enjoyed the broken, fragile, yet extremely tight bond between Big Angel and his youngest brother, a half-Anglo named Little Angel (because apparently their father forgot he’d already named a son of his from his first marriage Angel). It is fraught, it is exasperating, it is excruciatingly beautiful.
Sometimes authors shouldn’t narrate their own work, but Urrea is absolute perfection! You not sure how the rhythm and lilt of the semi-Mexican/semi-American lingo rolls off the tongue? Listen to Urrea, and you’ll grasp the emotion, the sensitivity, the feeling behind each word, each phrase.
I can’t recommend The House of Broken Angels highly enough. The prose is beautiful, the characters will break your heart, the story is unforgettable. BUY IT NOW!!!
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