48 Hour Book Challenge Update

Thanks to  Mother Reader book lovers from all over the place come together to celebrate a world of knowledge and adventures. It's such a wonderful escape from reality and a great dive in to the world of fantasies. So, here is another update from this amazing weekend.



Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral was my Saturday morning pick and boy was I happy I picked it up. First of all let me tell you how fascinated I was with the format of this book. The love story of Gloria and Frank is told through notes, pictures, you tube videos, chat conversations, Instagrams-style photographs, and letters. It's like browsing through a private journal where you don't really understand everything that is going on but you're constantly trying to put together the clues, the phrases, the pictures. It's a gigantic puzzle of love, young love, mystery, frustration and loneliness.

After losing her mother, Gloria dived into the world of music, playing the piano day and night. Her father had big plans for her: to be a sold-out performer at Carnegie Hall and worldwide. He wants her to remain focus and dedicated which she does until she meets Frank.  Frank is from Argentina, a lonely soul that dreams of going back home, and who lives in between worlds all the time. Gloria and Frank found each other, two lost and lonely souls with no particular direction and ever since they were inseparable. Were they? Some questions will remain answered but the love spiral is a fascinating one.

As some of you know, I'm from Argentina and I was happily surprised to see so many on-point references to my country, its music, wine selection, and Latin American authors. I grew up listening to music by Julio Iglesias because my parents would play his CDs on Sunday afternoons. It gave me goosebumps to see these references as it brought me back home. Another reference in this novel is about Pablo Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. Could there be more romantic and heartbreaking poems like these ones? I doubted. Growing up Pablo Neruda was my favorite all-time companion.

I'm a process kind of person, one that takes most joy of doing things. I care about the final product but I ENJOY the process of putting things together. I can only imagine how creative the process  was for authors Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral to put this book together. I hope we get to see more books in this format. Let the imagination go wild!