Thursday, April 14, 2016

Book Review: The Barefoot Queen by Ildefonso Falcones


A young gypsy girl finds herself close friends with a recently freed Cuban slave who has ended up in Spain. Set in the mid-1700’s, The Barefoot Queen portrays many of the harsh realities faced by slaves and is not a book for young readers. It can also be a little hard to read at time considering the fact that it was written in Spanish and translated to English. It does move rather slowly, and quite frankly took me a long time to read. I found myself putting it down for long periods of time and having to re-read bits of it to remember what had happened.

The Barefoot Queen is a well-written book, but incredibly difficult to get through. I probably would have had a much easier time reading the ebook format on my Kindle, but I have the hardback. As the mother of two small children, it’s hard to read such a large book and keep it away from little hands, or to hold on to it while nursing a baby.

With that said, I enjoyed this book. It does not sugar coat anything and is full of tragedy, but I enjoy historical fiction. The Barefoot Queen allowed me to expand my reading of that genre to historical fiction set elsewhere besides the United States.

If you are a mature reader and have the time and interest for this type of book, then The Barefoot Queen is for you (although I recommend the ebook). However, younger readers and most casual readers will probably be better off looking elsewhere.



I received this book for free from the publisher through the Blogging for Books blogger review program. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions and thoughts I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255

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