A little disorienting but I liked it overall! I liked how the stories crossed together and thought that the audiobook narrator was good! 4 stars, would recommend

Living or existing (might be the better term), in New York, Margarita reluctantly faces her fifty-sixth birthday. Life is not what she expected… for one big thing, she feels neglected by her husband, who she suspects is having an affair with one his college students.
We have Anne, the concierge of her apartment building, who has suddenly vanished without a trace, leaving Anne’s mother to confront a long-held secret.

Then there is Juliana, who is now in her eighties, and eager to find the woman who changed the course of her life 60 years ago.

There us a lot going on in this story but I was not ever able to tie it all together.
The narrator was good I just couldn’t keep my attention focused, It could be that this is a better read to self book.

In my youth I work at an independent bookstore in a Spanish-speaking country. Books that won the Premio Alfaguara featured prominently on our shelves, which is partially why I was so excited for this one. Then I read the stories themselves and was blown away by their plot and the quality of the writing. This collection was an absolute delight!

This book was delightful. I am a patient reader, so the fact that the stories were a bit disjointed did not bother me. I really loved the narrator, but I do wish I had had the physical book to reference as I went along.

Not my typical queer read, but for what it was, it was good. Very independent, unique approach. A shorter length that I can appreciate.
Will likely not pick it up again and would probably only recommend to someone who almost strictly reads LGBTQ+ works.

(I received an ARC for free via NetGalley in return for an honest review.)

To be honest I was completely lost throughout the book. I didn't understand the line of the story. We didn't spend enough time with either character to know them well. However, the word and the writing are beautiful.

3 stars

Solid prose & some interesting character work, but this novella rambles & I never could find a central storyline or theme to grasp onto.

[What I liked:]

•Some of the premises in here were intriguing, particularly the book about intentionally disappearing off the grid in the contemporary US that keeps getting re-published and/or plagiarized.

•I did eventually come to care about the security guard who vanished & want to know what happened to her. That mystery kept me reading til the end.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•This novella rambled & didn’t make much sense to me. It either needed to be longer, more developed & more cohesive, or have the interesting ideas & premises parsed out into individual short stories.

•A lot of the plot points are just straight up random & completely unbelievable. Which is not always a bad thing, but it felt out of place in this book that seemed to simultaneously take itself very seriously.

CW: infidelity, suicide

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

One In Me I Never Loved is a novella that intertwines the voices and lives of several women across a timeline of many years.

For me personally, this novella was very hard to follow. This could be due to the audiobook format so maybe I wouldn't have been as confused if I read the physical book. Another reason I felt it hard to connect to this audiobook is because I am not a fan of Cassandra Campbell and that is who narrates this audiobook. I find her voice and intonation incredibly distracting making it hard to want to continue listening at times. It was also very cringey when listening to her narrate due to the fact that she is a white woman when Carla Guelfenbein is Chilean and therefore telling the stories of Chilean women who speak Spanish and have accents which Campbell very much does not have.

Nevertheless, there were many interesting stories that were present in this novella. I was particularly interested in Margarita and Jorge's story. I would be interested in giving this another go when I can get my hands on a physical copy.

I couldn’t get into this book at all. The narrator felt awkward and I had a hard time liking or rooting for any of the characters. I abandoned it about halfway.

One In Me I Never Loved by Carla Guelfenbein is a translated literary historical fiction that is a tour de force of women finding their place in life.

Using letters written by real life Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral to her female lover who betrays her the author tells an interconnecting story of women in NY going back to the 1940s who are dealing with love, betrayal, and self worth.

On her 56th birthday Margarita is sitting on a bench waiting to catch her husband cheating on her. Juliana is trying to find a woman whose kindness changed her life when she was a little girl. Then there is the mother of Anna who is distraught that Anna has disappeared and no one will help find her.

Though there is much going on in this novella narrator @cassandracampbell brings the uniqueness to each woman and with the backdrop of a bustling NYC we see Margarita come to terms with her decisions while helping these women.

Though the beginning is a bit convoluted patience provides a very satisfying and somewhat surprise conclusion

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publishers via #netgalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

I found this book hard to follow. I kept confusing the characters and storylines. Quick read, but hard to follow.

Pros: I was interested in reading this novella because it is a book in translation. I also was interested in reading a story where the protagonist is a 56-year-old woman—it seems there aren’t many stories about women of this age. This novella has a unique structure.

Cons: I was confused for much of this book about the connections of the storylines. The book’s description helped, but without it I think I would have been completely lost.

Thank you to NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for the opportunity to listen to this book.

I’ve shared this review on Goodreads and StoryGraph.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/1f2d51dd-4b31-43cb-9071-6498b95d149a
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4394843708

I was very confused though all at this book. I never understood it. I did like the way that was read.