Engulfing Christina's treats in just two days, I long for more. What's the girl worth? I'm thinking a lot. While a pretty girl in a strange land always makes for story, a dark western eye's subtle slice through Europe is entriguing. Ms. Fitzpatrick offers the sol y sombra of Madrid, battling her amorous and paternal demons with the distilled emotion and stabbing sincerity of a matador. While her problems are salt of the earth, her texture is sublime. Although she may fall at times, you'll want to lift her up. I can't wait to lift her up again.

I'm not much on review writing, but after reading this book I felt compelled. The story of 20 year old Catherine's journey halfway around the world to "find herself" could have easily turned into a travelogue. It didn't. If you happen to be looking for a tourist's guide to Spain, I would recommond Fodor's... not this novel. What it did turn into is the story of a very real girl who is battling with the same demons many of us do... self image, past relationships, the desire to make the right decisions.

I was thrilled to find a protagonist I could relate to for once. The girl has issues... She knows she has issues, but she is a little confused about what those issues are... and as a refreshing change, those issues do not involve the family fortune, finding a new husband to finance a Park Avenue penthouse, or terminal illness. Those issues do involve being a child of divorce and alcoholism, and an all consuming need to succeed on her own, emotionally and financially. It is that need that we see constantly driving Catherine as she navigates her way through the unfamiliar territory of Madrid.

For me, this was a five star novel; however, I have to admit that Fitzpatrick can be a bit long winded at times. For the lines I decided to skip over here and there because they seemed a bit irrelevant, I have deducted one star. Also in the spirit of fairness, I should caution that this is not a "feel good" novel. Although I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as "dark", it is a bit moody, and does not wrap everything up in a nice, neat bow at the end as many would prefer for a novel to do.

Just finished Where We Lived the other night and, after turning out the lights, found myself restless. The debut collection was a refreshing find, drawing me into an American landscape sallow and softly faded, one I had forgotten when I left it behind. The prose is shrewd - here insightful and amusing, there taut and uncomfortable. It's so often languid that it doesn't feel threatening until its accurate depiction of the human condition leaves you feeling abandoned even as city of strangers hustles all around you. This is how the girls are brought before us, with a quiet, but harrowing deftness. Fitzpatrick places them into their stories as if on a lathe, carving away more with each spin by us, until they are whittled to a hollow we recognize as ourselves: flawed and awkward, mercurial in our will. The backgrounds are salted with an assortment of others, the uncomely and corrosive, the entertaining and those with promise. The closing piece is the funniest thing I've read since Daniel Orozco's "Orientation" opened the Best American Short Stories a few years back. I'm looking forward to picking up her newest work and finding where she will lead me next. And where she will leave me.