Rating: 
Summary: Hauntingly Lyrical
Review: I am a Cuban born in Havana and I too witnessed Fidel's overthrow of Batista, but in a different light. Although I don't agree with this author's politics, I'd be a fool to not appreciate his eloquent writing and brilliant metaphors. I collect Cuban books. My least favorite are the raw emotional ones written by Miami Right-Wing Cubans. But I must admit that this author deserves an applause merely for his exquisite writing. If you have children, there's a Cuban billigual picture book, Drum, Chavi, Drum!/Toca, Chavi, Toca! that is fun and features a dynamic Cuban girl who wants to play tumbadoras in Little Havana's Calle Ocho Festival but her family and teacher won't allow her. The fiesty little girl will win the hearts of all children. I recommend these two books if you collect Cuban literature.
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Summary: A must read for Cubamaniacs...
Review: I bought this book and read it 5 days after getting back from Cuba. I came back with an understanding of the events of the Revolution but felt completely disconnected emmotionally from what I learned. I'm greateful for this book.
The sense of loss and pain that Mr. Eire conveys in the book helped me to understand the destruction and changes that occured during 1959 on the personal level. So often, we see historical events as just events that happened. Many books have been written about the revolution and what happened. But reading this book attached the emmotions and feelings that a young boy was forced to experience at far too young an age.
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Summary: Excellent story, true to historical facts...
Review: I greatly enjoyed the stories and the style in which they are told. Having visited Cuba recently, this book gave me a historic context I lacked. There is a reason why Cuba is in such poverty and there is such duality to the place. The costs of a 44 year old dictatorship and countless failed social experiments have taken a sad toll on the country. This book helps explain the roots of these problems without the heavy political tone of other sources. I recommend it highly.
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Summary: Life before the Revolution
Review: I love this book.......I hear these same stories from my Cuban husband who is probably Carlos age. Interesting that my husband, who did not come from a privileged background and didn't get out of Cuba until the 1980's, speaks often of the same magical childhood before the revolution. So many comparisons and similar experiences, it's uncanny.
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Summary: Lush!
Review: I recently visited Cuba. Before making this much-anticipated trip, I read a lot about the Cuban-American experience, books like Rediscovering Cuba, The Lazarus Rumba, Mea Cuba, Dreaming in Cuban, among others. Each of these books, though different in breath and style, will distill forty-five years of a tragedy only 90-miles away from the USA. To my great sympathy for the Cuban tragedy, while in Cuba I was able to feel, see and experience exactly what each of these writers were able to make sense of and, finally, put into words. When the official history of the Cuban people is written, all of us will wonder in amazement why we didn't do more to destroy Castro's madness and be more sympathetic to the Cuban plight.
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Summary: Wonderful Book being surpressed
Review: I try not to be paranoid, but AMAZON seems to be making it hard to buy or get information on this wonderful autobiography/memoir. What is going on?
Rating: 
Summary: My love/hate relationship with this book
Review: Let me begin by saying that I really enjoyed reading this book, and so much of it is beautiful and likeable. The story of Eire's childhood, interspersed with his adult insights is moving, funny, sad, and quite lovely. There are so many wonderful characters, wonderfully described--his father who believes in reincarnation, his devout mother, his free-spirited cousin, his violent foster brother. The trouble is that it seems nearly impossible to write about 1960's Cuba without digressing into a political rant. Notice that I don't say political commentary or political argument. Eire begins with subtle and effective commentary that quickly becomes overly emotional ranting. The fact that his emotions are perfectly understandable doesn't strengthen his position.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: Living in Miami and being bombarded daily with news of Cuba and Fidel Castro, I was reluctant to begin reading this book when it was chosen for my book club. However, once I started reading this book, I simply couldn't stop. I LOVED it! The author writes beautifully and from the heart. His recollections are hilarious and bittersweet at the same time. I highly recommend this book to everyone.
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Summary: Lizards in Havana
Review: Long fascinated with Cuba, I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a good account of what Cuba was like before and during the revolution, as well as being a very interesting personal story.
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Summary: Lurking Lizards: Good vs. Evil
Review: On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro ousted Batista from Cuba and wrested eight-year-old Carlos Eire from his life of privileged ease. As a son of the upper class, Carlos had attended the best private schools and frolicked with his brother on clear Cuban beaches under a lemon sky. Three years later, countless public executions and social anarchy convinced his parents to send the boys to the United States. Carlos was one of the 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba to an uncertain future in America. Despite the poverty and loneliness that awaited him in Florida, Carlos went on to achieve success as a professor at Yale University. Waiting for Snow in Havana is his cathartic tale of Cuban life before and after its Glorious Revolution. The book's blatant honesty is sometimes painful to read, but its prosaic beauty left me breathless. There is a disjointed quality to the writing that is somehow appropriate here: a hilarious tale of neighborhood boys trying to send a lizard into outer space strapped to a bottle rocket might introduce a tirade against the author's perverted adopted brother, who tormented the young boy for years with sexual advances. He tells of his cousin's death before a firing squad and his uncle's retreat into madness after languishing in one of Fidel's many prisons, then goes on to paint exquisite pictures of tangerine sunsets and selfless love. Lizards. They crop up again and again, personifying evil. The book is a lyric commentary on the struggle of evil against God's creation. Lush Cuba is ravaged by a cruel overlord. The same ocean that teems with heart-stoppingly beautiful parrot fish houses sharks as well. Carlos' loving father is marred by the delusion, the certainty, that he is the reincarnation of King Louis XVI. He chooses his wife because he is convinced she was once Marie Antoinette. So great is his fantasy that he brings home a street urchin, whom he recognizes as the reincarnation of the French dauphin, and adopts him, thus innocently introducing a cruel pervert into his happy family. That he became a Christian believer despite the ugliness of his life is a triumph of God's grace. But believe he does, although his writing sometimes shocks my sensibilities. (The frequent use of Christ's name as a literary device, for example, offended me.) God works in mysterious ways, and His method of reaching a Cuban Catholic must surely be unlike His wooing of a Bible-Belt Protestant. It follows, then, that Dr. Eire's portrayal of God's love would necessarily be different from mine. Who am I to say that mine is better, despite his profanity? Apparently others in the Christian community agree with me; I actually read this book at the recommendation of a writer in Christianity Today, who named it among his top ten favorites of 2003. It is now a favorite of mine.
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