The Turkish Lover

If you are interested in an autobiography, this is it. The author is a Puerto Rican woman that against all odds, manages to succeed with her hard work. It is amazing how love can help you or sink you. This insecure, dark skinned girl that moves with her mother and brothers (dad refuses to join them) to New York looking for a better life, and better opportunities for the family, is trapped between two worlds, her ultra conservative education, "a decent Puerto Rican girl does not go out alone" and "a decent Puerto Rican girl is virgin ´till she marries" and the modern open-minded American way of”very bad indecent American girls".

To make it even worse, she gets involved with a much older Turkish man, that is as possessive and strict as her mother, he does not approve her family, and is not supportive; he doesn’t even call her by her name, Esmeralda. He refers to her as "Chiquita" (literally, little one) I assume both in a love-humiliating attitude. She becomes a slave of this man, by her own choice, she loves him, wants to be with him, admires and nearly worships him, but she is young and naive, and we can’t be young and naive forever (Can we?) so life, her life keeps changing but I have to say that is work and her own discipline what saves her from hell. I shall not reveal the juice of the story, but I shall say that she ends up growing mentally and spiritually. She graduates from Harvard, with a scholarship and honors!!

So, this is a book worth reading. No more excuses for women to stop growing in the "name of love" that is twisted. This is a wonderful, encouraging story of a brave woman that decides to take her life into her own hands and refuses to become a total failure or live her life by rules imposed by others. Three Cheers for Esmeralda Santiago, author of this book, that is not afraid to show us the darkest times of her life to prove that you can succeed, despite the burdens, even if one of the is your own "soul mate"