The Secret of the Bulls

Rating:
Summary: Sexual awareness and the stereo typical demands upon us
Review: Bernardo writes a good novel that makes one aware of the cultural traits that make up one culture and are transmitted to another. Also, he writes about the need to hide our sexual orientation when the climate around is unforgiving. Overall a good read, Bernardo lives in New York and has had a chance to experience the Cuban American reality.

Rating:
Summary: A great story told with heart and passion. A great read
Review: How can one rate this book? What is higher than five stars? A firmament? Well then, this book deserves a firmament.

I have read The Secret of the Bulls not once, not twice, but three times; and each time I read it I find something new in it. I confess that I have been deeply moved by it every single time I have read it, and yet, I have been moved in different places, which I find it strange. I guess I bring the state of my own personal life into the reading.

I fell instantly in love with all the characters, particularly that of Mani, a young boy who is the son and the grandson of a butcher but who dreams of being an artist, something almost impossible in the macho society in which he lives. Like Mani, I also come from a very poor background and yet I am pursuing a life in the arts, so I thoroughly identified with him. We first meet Mani as a boy, and we last meet him when as a young man he discovers what the Secret of the Bulls is all about: Finding your own identity and living your life at your own speed, following your own way, whether other people like or not. You have to read the book to the very, very end to understand what I mean. So please, I beg you to read it, it may change your life. It has changed mine. It has given me a lot of hope, and I always feel great when I finish reading it. The book has made me laugh (I mean, I actually laughed aloud as I read it); it has made me cry several times; and let's face it, the sex scenes'which are indeed essential to the story for a change'were called steamy by Publisher's Weekly, and WOW! They were not kidding!

A great story told with heart and passion.

A great read.

Rating:
Summary: A great story told with heart and passion. A great read
Review: I loved this book. I was engrossed immediately into Maximiliano and Delores's love affair, and I too wanted to dance the danzon. Sure, the book was dripping with machismo, but at no point does it pretend to do otherwise.

The book set me on a beautiful dream, and I didn't want to wake up. If you were able to imagine the world of Like Water for Chocolate, and willing not to judge the characters based on any feminist belief system, then you'll enjoy this thoroughly romantic and enchanting family saga.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful. . .
Review: I loved this book. I was engrossed immediately into Maximiliano and Delores's love affair, and I too wanted to dance the danzon. Sure, the book was dripping with machismo, but at no point does it pretend to do otherwise.

The book set me on a beautiful dream, and I didn't want to wake up. If you were able to imagine the world of Like Water for Chocolate, and willing not to judge the characters based on any feminist belief system, then you'll enjoy this thoroughly romantic and enchanting family saga.

Rating:
Summary: Secret of the Bulls
Review: What does the 'Kirkus Review' know?

This is a story that encompasses the lives of a Cuban family, and during the reading and subsequent re-reading of the story a couple years later, I was struck repeatedly by the desire to be Cuban. Yeah, so the men are stuck in that machismo muck. And there are some phrases that make one squirm. But they're Cuban- an entirely different culture. And a culture that Jose Raul Bernardo brings to such vivid life that I actually felt Cuban while I read it. And for a sheltered little suburban girl, that's quite a feat. My biggest issue with the book was the abrupt and weak ending, but I forgive the author that shortcoming because the remainder of the story was so very entertaining.

From the beginning of the story, where a young Maximiliano and Dolores are described in photographs, I was pulled into the age and flavor of Cuba. I danced the danzon, ate the palomillas and visited the posada. After Dolores marries the butcher's son and is disowned by her father, the young couple is determined to make it on their own. They suffer one calamity after another, and end up moving to the bright lights of Havana, where the story really takes off. One daughter is desperate for love, one son is desperate to have the best wife in the neighborhood, and one son is desperate to be loved and accepted by his family, while Dolores is looking the away from her husband's wandering eye. The book is really about how little ripples in a pond cause big waves on the far shore. It is also about how we can't possibly know everything that the people closest to us are doing, thinking or feeling, that usually only half the story is revealed, usually the shiny half.