I found "Almost Never" on a 2012 Best Books list, but I give it only two stars. Reader advice - I strongly suggest that anyone consider reading this first check out a random chapter before investing time and money. There is relatively little dialog and most of the descriptions and story telling is through lengthy paragraphs that take some time to make the point, often with tangents, random thoughts....Makes for a story that moves at snail pace. Demetrio is a young, hard working man who strikes up a relationship with prostitute Mireya early in the book. Lots of passion, obsession, energy. The last 3/4 of the book deals with D's puruit of Renata, a refined and very "old-fashioned" young lady even for the present times (1946-49 Mexico). Eventually D & R become engaged but D is allowed to only kiss her on the cheek until they are married (why didn't I stop reading here!?) Perhaps some will be enchanted. I was bored. ( )

I am in the middle of reading this book and am blown away. The writing style is like no other I have ever read. The book is written in Spanish (which I don't understand) so I am reading the English translation. Apparently the writing style is really difficult to translate and Spanish readers say that the translation is adequate but misses a lot of the zing of the original. All I can say is that there is a lot of zing left.

Anyway, the book is wonderful - amazing scenes, great characters, picaresque plot. Really fun. ( )