Bruno Blog

Last week, while reading El Pais, I couldn’t stop thinking about the latest Young Adult novel by Care Santos -the sequel of her book MENTIRA (‘Lies’), winner of the Edebé Prize and a huge bestseller. VERDAD (‘Truth’) deals with how Eric gets out of the juvenile center after four years interned, as he’s been absolved from the murder case of which he was unjustly accused at fourteen. In MENTIRA, you understand Eric and you want him to get out because he’s innocent, and in VERDAD you see how difficult it is to be accepted. Is that situation fair?

Reading the novel, I thought that it isn’t, nonetheless, as I read the news in El Pais about the rapist of La Paz’s neighbourhood (Madrid), I thought differently. This rapist, after raping more than 18 girls and killing two, got out of prison after 21 years behind bars, because psychologists said he was ‘sorry for it’. But he didn’t waste any time to rape and kill again. Maybe it’s an extreme case, but unfortunately it is not isolated. No one should be judged by the same pattern, but it’s difficult to ‘forgive’ someone that kills and rapes -I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel it, although everyone can change and improve for the better, thus everyone should have the right to a second chance. In my opinion, the elevator rapist didn’t deserve it, but Eric does, he’s a young and innocent kid and in the novel, you see how tough reality is when he tries to get back into society. It’s hard for him not to fall back again into delinquency when his surroundings want him to, as it is getting back in track with his studies, finding a job, getting away from his neighbourhood…Xenia helped him overcome some barriers that he thought were unbreakable, but… will love be strong enough to overcome the difficulties now?

Care Santos talks again about a prickly matter that has to be dealt with carefully, and she doesn’t generalize, even if it’s hard. Nonetheless, Eric deserves that chance, and he fights for it. An example to follow, without a doubt, and I wish this novel becomes a reason to reflect upon these kind of matters, both for young readers and grown-ups.

January the 6^th was a special day, as it is the Epiphany, a day we really like to celebrate at home. This year it was even more special, because the Nadal Prize was awarded to Care Santos, author and friend of mine, with a novel that has made me think a lot about its main topics: forgiveness and guilt. When Care told me that the quote that had inspired the book was from Joan-Carles Mèlich –“You can only forgive the unforgivable”, I knew this novel would be brilliant, and I wasn’t wrong.

MEDIA VIDA is a novel that, through the life of five friends throughout thirty years, portrays a generation of women that had to build their destinies in the Spain of the dictatorship and the Transition. It’s a homage to these women, who lived in a moment in which the hypocrisy of those who wanted to keep up appearances at any cost confronted love and freedom. Five different lives, some successful, others not so much, but all of them scarred forever because of a terrible event that happened when they were teens. The main topic of this novel is how to deal with guilt and forgiveness, and many readers will mull over that once they finish it. Have you ever forgiven the unforgivable? Asking for forgiveness isn’t easy, but as I’ve gotten older, I think it’s not worth it not to forgive, and is way better to know how to apologise, so you can live at ease and happily with everyone. This novel is the perfect example that life is unpredictable and the best thing you can do is feeling good about yourself so that you can make others happy.

I started the year in a great way, but I also ended it recovering a very important friendship for me, which I’m not going to let go ever again. Maybe there are still some unfinished conversations, but I live with the illusion of having recovered something as valuable as one of my best friends from my youth. Reading is a great partner in this journey that we call life, and when it is a part of it, everything fits, like a magical puzzle. Without realising, you understand many things and you’re aware that nothing happens without a reason, just like another good friend has taught me.

Thank you, Care Santos, for such a wonderful novel, for this homage to friendship that won’t ever leave us. A high-end Nadal Prize that won’t disappoint anyone.

This long weekend I am visiting a friend in Punta Cana, and what draws my attention is that being in a resort you see many prototypes of people, but almost all foreigners who come to the pool and to dance, read. This makes me immensely happy, because part of their entertainment and enjoyment includes reading. They always find the time to read. Because, as we all know, the excuse of “I like it but I do not have time for it” is not true. Everything is a question of priorities, even in a paradisiac place like this where you can be lying all day and people serving you, or going on a hike and come back to the hotel extremely tired. The reading moment must be looked for, but who wants to have it, can have it. And it’s basic that if you believe that books are important to life, which I firmly believe, to set an example with practice, because it helps to those around you to look at books.

Many parents want their children to read, but they never open a book, so it is clear that it is difficult for them to like reading, unless they are already passionate about them naturally, which can happen, and it happens, but less often than we would like. So let’s try to find the best time to share it with a good book, I’m sure few could regret this modest advice, and, instead, they could start to like something beautiful and useful at the same time.

So today I leave for you all those who have children nearby, a collage of children’s books so that the Three Wise Men or Santa Claus can begin to help promote the habit of reading:

– Los detectives Ho. El desastre Ja (Edebé) by Care Santos, the third delivery of the Olmedo brothers. Between the three of them they try to solve small challenges of daily life. The first two books are El misterio Cro and El caso Hu.

–  El club de los caníbales muerde a Drácula by Gabriel García Oro (Anaya). Previously, the cannibals fled don Quijote.

–  Laura SuperChef. El mejor bocadillo del mundo, by Care Santos. Second adventure of Laura, who will face a great contest. Laura SuperChef. Cocholate was the first title, edited by Ediciones Bruño.

–  Also, you can choose one of the books starring Òscar and Nora (Se vende mamá, Se vende papá, Se vende Garbanzo and Se vende mejor amigo, edited by Ediciones SM). Its success has crossed borders and has reached Portugal, Italy and Korea among other countries.

To give a book is to give life, imagination and the entrance to different worlds where to get lost and find oneself to arrive to the real world with something more, always with something more. Therefore, gifts that offer something are the star gifts. Let us not forget about them.

This week we celebrate San Juan. On June the 23rd, it’s the eve party night and we welcome the summer with firecrackers and rockets. This is the shortest night of the year but also one of the most intense, which many describe as magical. For me, it’s a party I especially like because it is celebrated among friends and family but also because it announces the beginning of the summer season, with more light, livelier people, eager to enjoy the well-deserved vacations and to try to put aside the harshness of the rest of the year in order to enjoy a little bit more of everything. We loosen up and let more fluidity get in our lives, with less strict schedules and more improvised lunches and dinners, terraces and moments spent with friends, even on weekdays. So, San Juan eve has for everyone its meaning but it is a celebration day for everyone, and joy is the main course in every home. That’s why Care Santos has dedicated a book to that special party, published by editorial Base. I highly recommend the reading of that book for young ones, and especially during these dates where books take a second place, I am aware of that, but luckily it is not the case for stories. Stories should always be part of our lives and part of the daily lives of the children, so that the habit of reading becomes a pleasure instead of an obligation.

Care Santos also just got a novel published, for older kids between 8 and 10 years-old, and for those who like the culinary subject, which is very fashionable these days with television programs that are audience leaders, such as MasterChef. Care has created the character LAURA CHEF, a girl who has signed up for a cooking course during the summer and this book will be her notebook of master classes with professor Lechuga (Lettuce, in English), a worldwide known chef. This is the perfect book to make our kids’ holidays start with a smile, to make them feel like reading and perhaps like cooking too, a perfect activity that can be shared with the family, without getting burned. There will be more books about Laura, because I’m sure that the little readers will devour the first one in no time at all. This is not a reading only for girls, because we have noticed that the cooking theme is appreciated by all genders, although girls will more likely feel identified with the character that Care has embroidered.

As for now there is only one in the market, but you can mix LAURA CHEF’s reading with the four previously published books from the YES WE DANCE series. It is the story of a group of girls whose passion is dancing and that will also get to travel to New York and some more countries too, on tour with their idols and fulfilling their dream. Nevertheless, they will soon realize that the lives of celebrities are not as great as it seems and that fame has a price. KITCHEN AND DANCE, here are two of the currently fashionable things, so that the kids can have ensured a good reading, and also the children that don’t discard to have a look to these little girls’ adventures, because you always learn.

Finally, we have the ideal books for the teens: EBLUS trilogy, by Care Santos, which I already mentioned previously on this blog, and also Santi Baró’s book entitled L’EFECTE CALDERS, winner of the 2016 Joaquim Ruyra prize. The novel does not pretend to be a tiresome book about the Catalan writer Pere Calders, because it makes a portrait of him and his literature which is really great. Xavier, the main character, has some problems making friends, he is a great comics reader and the only thing he wants is to avoid his parents, so that they let him spend a quiet august month in Llançà, one of the most beautiful fishing villages on the Catalan coast, where the unexpected friendship with the eccentric writer Pere Calders, who also spend his summers there, will change the path of his life.

These are the five readings we recommend for these holidays, for different age groups. The parents who are disoriented, like us, but still believe that reading is a pleasure and a habit that the young ones have to see at home, won’t let down their children if we recommend them some of these mentioned adventures. A good book is a great traveling partner; you already know that, don’t forget it and let’s enjoy it.

Some of us want to believe that LOVE can save a lot of things. I’ve always thought that love has a lot of shapes, there are different ways of loving, but with love, you can achieve your goals. People who believe that giving love to others, they make the world better, I think they’re completely right. Nevertheless, the human race is so selfish that hardly anyone shows love without asking for something in exchange, and in the end that’s what makes LOVE in big letters fail in some occasions. Giving without receiving is love in its purest state, but let’s think of who really applies it to their daily life, every day. Do we?

Care Santos, in her trilogy Eblus (Ediciones B in Spanish), shows us that love is the only thing that stops the worst and most dangerous creature in history. The devil himself will run into something he wasn’t expecting: love. Natalia will be the only obstacle that he’ll find in his long trail of evil, and his obsession with her will end up driving him crazy. Will love beat evil? A historic battle that Care Santos forcefully throws into the ring so nobody will want to stop reading this trilogy that will show us a family’s curse, which will scar the lives of the Albás’ families, and of which they don’t know how to escape. The truth of the curse is only known by Eblus, a devil who doesn’t forget nor forgive, but who’s more human than he wants to confess in some things. Care publishes three excellent novels once again, majestic, and in which there’s a lot of reflection wrapped in adventure. An A+ for this author, who doesn’t stop surprising us, and who made me think that there may be a lot like Eblus in our society, but that we can beat them if we want. Me, I do. And you?