Spanish Heart

By: Rachel Spangler

Narrated by: Hope Newhouse

What's the point of finding yourself if you lose your heart in the process?

Ren Molson should be chasing a bright new future. Instead, she's spent the last two years floundering in a small-town community college. She hates being the only lesbian she knows, and a virgin. She's tired of watching her friends move forward while her momentum stalls. Most of all, she's sick of feeling lost and confused about who she is or what she's supposed to do with her life. Desperate for a change, Ren hopes to use her Spanish class tour through Spain to remake herself.

True to her plan, as Ren travels through Spain, she learns more about herself than the country she's visiting. What she doesn't expect is to fall in love with her beautiful young tour guide, Lina Montero. She'll have to decide if her life can handle any more uncertainty and just how far she's willing to go in order to become the person she thought she wanted to be.

©2012 Rachel Spangler (P)2018 Bold Strokes Books, Inc

Good story annoying narrator

The story was sweet but the narrator kept pulling me out of it. How to describe this narrator...she’s like what jello would sound like if it had a voice: bulbous, wobbly and jiggly. In short it seems as though her tongue is too big for her mouth.

Very enjoyable

This review is for the audiobook version which I really enjoyed. The narrator Hope Newhouse did a fantastic job, especially with her Spanish! I’m not Spanish, but it did sound very good and I liked how even the Spanish characters were still identifiable.

As for the story, yes there are definitely times you want to shake Ren, but she’s also only 20 and never been anywhere so is quite naive and a little closed minded. Lina on the other hand has the patience of a saint, and I liked her character a lot. The minor characters are well developed and all different.

The last third of the book was my favorite, when the romance really happens, and I did like the ending. It makes me really want to listen to Spanish Surrender (the next of the duo because this definitely isn’t one of the Darlington series like it’s says here), but unfortunately that’s not available in audiobook form, which is a shame because it’s absolutely the better of the two books. You can tell this is an early book of Spangler’s, and her writing has really moved on and upwards since this story.

You’ll enjoy this book if you prefer young adult coming of age stories. It’s worth it for the Spanish culture (especially if you look up the places and artwork mentioned). It does contain a rather dodgy scene in a nightclub on Ren’s second visit there, and a bout of very underage drinking. But it has times that are quite emotional, and some very funny scenes in it too. It’s a very slow burn on the romance.

A young story

The story is cute, very young for an old woman like me, but a nice way to learn about Spain, about the life of students like the ones I have...
Narration was good when accent was needed, but the main character sounded more like she is going to cry any minute and that got on my nerves more than once.
The end was quite predicted
All in all I looked it and I would recommend it to the younger audience.

Touching

A coming of age story for young adults and those in college... I really liked this book and would recommend it. The narrator did a nice job too.

Guess I'm going to Spain!

Wonderful book, should be a classical read for all college entries. History research leaves uinlove.