I love Ruta Sepetys' books because she writes about times and events in history that aren't regularly written about. Fountains of Silence is about the period of time after the Spanish Civil War, Franco's regime, and the thousands of babies who went missing during that time period.

We follow two main characters: Daniel and Ana. Daniel is a Texan visiting Spain in the 1950s. His mom is a native Spaniard and his dad is an oil tycoon. He meets Ana at his hotel when she is his family's assigned hotel staff. We see Ana and her family struggle in the aftermath of the Civil War, living in extreme poverty and trying to stay afloat and alive. Daniel sees his visit both through the things he hears from Ana and through his camera lens.

I really loved the way that Sepetys purposefully wrote this story from the main perspective of an American and not from a Spaniard. She writes in her authors note that when she was researching in Spain, she heard a lot from the people there that she couldn't possibly understand what that time period was like because she wasn't from Spain. I love that she listened to them and didn't try and write their story. She wrote about an American learning their story. It's such an important and distinct difference.

This book can be really difficult to read in terms of Ana's family living in poverty and discussing what they all went through during the war. It's hard to know that people actually lived through all of that, and there are millions of people still living like that today.

I did think this book dragged quite a bit in the first half. It seemed like not a lot happened, and there were so many characters I got them confused a lot. But I still will read anything Sepetys writes, and I can't wait to see what she releases next!

*Thanks to the publisher for providing my copy of the book via Netgally in exchange for my review!*