Una joven camina rápido sobre la nieve de las calles de Nueva York un día de invierno de los años veinte. Lleva una receta en el bolso que le permitirá adquirir en la farmacia una botella de vino para celebrar la Nochebuena con unos amigos. Estamos en plena ley seca. La joven es Concha Piquer, tiene apenas dieciocho años y lleva ya cuatro triunfando en los escenarios de Broadway, se ha visto envuelta en un homicidio y ha tenido contactos con la mafia. Llegó casi sin experiencia, sin conocer más mundo que la huerta y algún teatro de su ciudad, sin hablar otra lengua que no fuera el valenciano.

Antes de volver a España y convertirse en símbolo de toda una época, deslumbra también en México y Cuba. La niña campesina regresa envuelta en glamour y dinero, con varios amantes a sus espaldas y un hijo secreto. A partir de entonces, su vida se cruza con la de escritores como Blasco Ibáñez o García Lorca, toreroscomo Antonio Márquez, políticos, boxeadores, actores y actrices...

Lejos del estereotipo de la cupletista, Concha Piquer fue mucho más que eso o, para ser exactos, fue de todo menos eso. La historia de esta «mujer moderna» es también un retablo de una época de la historia de España, la de la posguerra y el franquismo. Y Manuel Vicent la recrea con una magistral mezcla de realidad y ficción, y un ingenio, una finura y una ironía sin igual en la literatura española.

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Sometimes you have to let go of the thing you love most. While caring for a baby crow, Mandy begins to look at her family and herself in a different light

The Cry of the crow is a decent piece of realistic fiction. The message of the book is that growing up is complicated and that life requires sacrifice to protect the ones we love. I think this book is a fine piece of literature, but it does not draw my attention as a reader. The conflict of the book is interesting, but my loss of interest comes from the setting. The conflict is interesting as it deals with Mandy, the main character, having to decide whether to take care of an orphaned crow or to let it die to protect her family's strawberry farm. this takes an interesting turn as the young crow grows up and begins to attack her brother. This creates an interesting moral dilemma as Mandy has to choose between the safety and well being of her family or protect the crow that she raised from a chick. In the end, she has to make a choice to either kill the bird or let it continue to harass her family. However, the story falters with the setting. the book is set in a very rural countryside on a families strawberry farm. I am unable to make connections with the characters because I have no experience of living on a farm or having to deal with pests that threaten my livelihood. It is interesting to observe how rural life has shaped the thinking of the characters such as the father's desire to kill the crows to protect his crops, but since I haven't had a similar experience I lack the ability to connect with the motivations of the characters that are fostered by the rural setting. This may extend to other readers from urban and suburban settings who are not captivated by the farm setting and can't connect to the characters because of the difference in between their surroundings and the environment of the book. The book is a decent book with an interesting conflict, but it just wasn't able to engage me due to the setting on a rural farm. ( )

-A gun blast awakes Mandy one morning. Someone in her family is shooting crows again. To Mandy’s father and brothers, crows are pests that have to be kept away from the family’s valuable strawberry crop. So when Mandy finds the helpless baby crow in the woods, she feeds her and tames her in secret. Mandy names the crow Nina Terrance and learns to communicate with her by imitating the calls and moans of other crows. As Nina grows, the wild crows try to lure her away. Knowing that Nina must be free but wanting to keep her as a pet, Mandy begins to realize that growing up is more complicated than she ever dreamed.

This book is ok. The moral lessons it wants to impart fail to hit home and the protagonists evolution seems to be stunted. While the message the author wants to impart is obvious, it comes off that teaching duplicity, selfishness, and giving up when things don’t go one’s way are stronger than responsibility, accountability, and common sense. The ending is horrifying, with Mandy simply killing the crow as her first thought of recourse. Not a book I would recommend. ( )