The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Hello Lit Aficionados!
Are you all looking for love and romance in the worst way…? Well, look no further than The Bad Girl. She is bad, she is sexy, she is ruthless, she is intoxicating, she doesn’t care and we love it! Mario Vargas Llosa, paints the blistering power of obsession and how indulgence can rot away the heart in an enticing story of love gone BAD.
I am a sucker for historical fiction with all the right moves and this story has got it. We follow Ricardito from the time of adolescence in Peru to that of an old man breathing the ebb of desire in Paris, France and his inescapable love for the Bad Girl. With each new chapter in his life, Ricardo finds himself meeting the Bad Girl in a new and exhilarating and completely maddening way. Time after time she worms her way back into his life only to later leave without so much as a goodbye. She seduces him with each of her personalities and nuances, each time he swears that he will not fall for her charms and each time he is left broken hearted.
What I love most about this book is that even though I saw the inevitable heartbreak coming and I knew that Ricardo would burn, I still couldn’t put the book down. Each chapter is filled with conjured twists, calloused and spicy characters that edged the story further into glory. The Bad Girl, being the temptress and “gold digger” that she is kept me wildly infatuated with her too. I wanted to know her secret. I too, wanted her. I wanted to know everything about each persona that she created, learn their history and know whether or not she would finally change and love Ricardo with the same fervent passion that he did her.
This book is not for those that fear love or heartbreak. It’s for those that embrace it and understand the beauty of relationships (good and bad). This book teaches us to hold onto it all, because in the end all the different people that we come across have helped to shape influence and mold the people that we are today. Vargas Llosa is awe-inspiring, and I can’t wait to read another piece by him 🙂
Read this book! It is a supreme read. I would have finished it earlier had school not gotten in the way, haha. If you read it, let me know what you think and feel. I loved it!
Alessandra Castellanos 