It may have clean verbage and a winning premise, but the story misses at every turn. The book attempts to cover Puerto Rican weather, politics, the social climate, and the main focus: a Russian ballerina and her dance troupe. But the novel fails to cover anything well. The book never fleshes out the characters. Every scene which might engage the reader and become exciting happens off stage so that we're left with a narrator's lackluster reference to it. We don't even really see the ballerinas warm-up, let alone feel their joy in dancing. I'm not sure what the writer's goal was since there's very little tension, and the story fails to have a clear plot.

This is the first book of Ferre's that I read and I found it just fine. I agree with Publisher's Weekly that the introduction of a new voice near the end was jarring. But as someone not familiar with Puerto Rico of the early 20the Century I thought it was interesting, and the descriptions of the ballet company were engrossing. Great literature? No. A good read about two subjects exotic to most readers -- old Puerto Rico and ballet? Yes. I think it would make a great movie.

I loved this book... I started reading it in the cobblestoned streets of Old San Juan, on my way to snack on a famous buttered "mallorca" accompanied by cafe con leche from La Bombonera bakery. Before I knew it, I was enthralled in the story. I found myself walking the same streets as the characters, sitting in San Juan's main plazas while I read about the characters strolling at night in the same streets.... This book does a fantastic job of combining Puerto Rican culture and its political turmoil at the turn of the 19th century with the struggles of Russia during their revolution. The main characters are russian and they slowly become "latinized"-- more universal symbols of political struggle, characters that are displaced from their homeland to face the struggle of a new culture, language, and political struggle. This is Rosario Ferre's best book.