I was given a NetGalley widget for this one a year ago and I just got around to reading it and dangit it was so good. I am so thankful for the opportunity to have consumed this wildly relevant fictional tale, which felt not at all fictional, more like historical fiction, due to the times. The cover initially was what drew me in, but I'm so thankful to have stuck with it because the outcome was magical. I always love listening to audiobooks and when they sweep me off my feet, I'm just utterly captivated! I always really enjoy multi-cultural lit-fic for I embark on a journey through a land unknown to me, while still getting engaged.

I really did not enjoy the audiobook for this book. It felt very stilted and a lot of sentences were run together to the point that I could hardly understand what was going on. I really enjoyed the story but the audiobook made it difficult to get through.

As intrigued as I was by the synopsis, this book was unfortunately not for me. The writing style is mesmerizing, I certainly can't fault it for that, but I struggled with feeling at all engaged with the characters. This could entirely be a me problem. I'd be interested in reading something else by this author.

This is one of those books that you'll remember the rest of your life. Sacrificio is 100% original and quite an education. Like many Americans, I'd have to say that I don't know a whole lot about Cuba so reading this book definitely helped to increase my world view and open my eyes a bit.

You can't have a book about Cuba without a revolution can you ? This is one such revolution in the nineties involving a pair of sexually ambiguous brothers and a wayward stranger, Rafa. The older brother takes the stranger under his wing and promptly moves him into the family home. Pretty soon after that Rafa begins to get wrapped up in the brothers plans to shake up the Cuban government by purposely infecting people with HIV.

To call this a "gay" novel, isn't quite correct. This is more a novel about poverty, corrupt government, political intrigue and of course, revolution. To the people in this book. sex is just a transaction you negotiate with another person to fulfill a bodily need. Whether you decide to have gay sex or straight sex, it doesn't define who you are. Grab this book, you'll be glad.

Sacrificio is a dense novel about identity and longing and a nation's collapse. We follow Rafa, an Afro-Cuban orphan who moved to Havana with nothing, and gets a job at a café where he gets pulled into a counterrevolutionary group called "Los Injected Ones".

The writing was beautiful and I loved the interspersion of Spanish. Mestre-Reed's descriptions in particular were evocative. That being said, I had a hard time following what was happening for the first 30% or so of the book because we were jumping around in time and even after I got the sense of time I still found myself losing the thread of the plot at times throughout the book. I'm not sure if it was the narration or if I would have had a similar problem if I read the physical book.

While the story on the surface is about Rafa's search for Renato, it is more a portrait of life in Havana in 1998. We see the daily lives of Cubans- their jobs and loves and struggles, and we see how they interact with the tourists in the city. We also see how HIV/AIDS affected the country. We learn early on that Renato is HIV positive and spent time living in a sanatorio. And eventually we see the counterrevolutionary group who is purposely infecting themselves with the virus. Cuba is not a country I know much about, so a lot of my enjoyment of this book was researching to figure out what was pure fiction and what was grounded in reality.

Overall, I think this was an interesting and incredibly ambitious novel, and while not all of it worked for me, I still recommend you check it out if it sounds interesting to you!

I have not come across many books about HIV from non-western perspectives. So, when I read the description for Sacrificio, I was completely thrilled. In this book, I found something comically dark, sensual yet apocalyptic. Descriptive prose burst with animated description bringing to life a host of descriptions that allow for clear understanding of how each moment unfolds. I was intrigued by its depiction not only of the men and boys of the story follows but the women who were wildly different from one another with various preoccupations. My cravings to know about them was always satiated, though tragedy seems to befall them all as much as the main characters. My only hesitation is with some of the language used. I enjoyed the mix of English with Spanish. Especially in the audiobook where Emmanuel Chumaceiro gave them life, it gave me a sense of how the characters related to one another. As a non native, non fluent learner of Spanish, I found myself shaking when words I have been taught to view as slurs were used as terms of endearment as well as insult. I feel unequipped to have a nuanced discussion about this. Overall, I found myself falling in love with this novel and think it is an interesting read for those intrigued by the premise.

A tale of familial ties, political resistance, cultural identity and desperation, this novel is one that will stick with you, Set with the backdrop of Cuba under Fidel Castro's regime, this focuses on a HIV positive, counterrevolutionary group. Rafa, an orphan, becomes involved in "Los Injected Ones" when he begins to work at a cafe in Havana, The son of his boss, Renato, becomes the leader of the group. Rafa and Renato's relationship is a complex one to say the least.

The writing style was raw and powerful but, at times, I felt myself losing the plot. I really enjoyed learning more about Cuba in the light of the AIDS epidemic, a topic you rarely (if ever) see portrayed in fiction. I do believe I would have enjoyed this more as a physical read because the narrator didn't capture my attention. I often found my mind wandering despite my attempts at focus.

This book was very dense and a little difficult to understand as someone that has very limited knowledge of Cuba in the 1990's. It required me to do some outside research to be able to understand the HIV history in Cuba.

I loved the historical swap and reimagination of the Los Frikis as counterrevolutionaries. But this book and its narrator were dry, it failed to capture my attention - I could not get into the story. I think this book is for an audience that I am not a part of - but nonetheless the author's writing is impeccable.