DNF: The Blue Line by Ingrid Betancourt

The Blue Line
written by Ingrid Betancourt
published by Penguin Press, 2016

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble (Nook) (print), Amazon, iBooks, Book Depository, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange f
or an honest review.

Where I stopped reading: page 70 of 360

Why I stopped reading: I just could not get into this book. It had too much information about Argentina’s Dirty War. I know that is the time period for this story, but I expected it to be more about Julia’s gift of visions and the later interventions than about the details of the political unrest. I wanted the magical realism, the love story, the visions.

What others have rated this book: According to Goodreads, the average rating for The Blue Line is 3.74 stars. It looks like a majority of readers gave this book 4 stars. There were 5 3-star reviews on Amazon. At Barnes & Noble, the majority of the reviews were ? stars. Just because I didn’t finish this book doesn’t mean you won’t.

About the book – from Goodreads: From the extraordinary Colombian French politician and activist Ingrid Betancourt, a stunning debut novel about freedom and fate

Set against the backdrop of Argentina’s Dirty War and infused with magical realism, The Blue Line is a breathtaking story of love and betrayal by one of the world’s most renowned writers and activists. Ingrid Betancourt, author of  the New York Timesbestselling memoir Even Silence Has an End, draws on history and personal experience in this deeply felt portrait of a woman coming of age as her country falls deeper and deeper into chaos.

Buenos Aires, the 1970s. Julia inherits from her grandmother a gift, precious and burdensome. Sometimes visions appear before her eyes, mysterious and terrible apparitions from the future, seen from the perspective of others. From the age of five, Julia must intervene to prevent horrific events. In fact, as her grandmother tells her, it is her duty to do so—otherwise she will lose her gift.

At fifteen, Julia falls in love with Theo, a handsome revolutionary four years her senior. Their lives are turned upside down when Juan Perón, the former president and military dictator, returns to Argentina. Confronted by the realities of military dictatorship, Julia and Theo become Montoneros sympathizers. Julia and Theo are radical idealists, equally fascinated by Jesus Christ and Che Guevara. Captured by death squadrons, they somehow manage to escape. . . .

In this remarkable novel, Betancourt, an activist who spent more than six years held hostage by the FARC in the depths of Colombian jungle, returns to many of the themes of Even Silence Has an End. The Blue Line is a story centered on the consequences of oppression, collective subservience, and individual courage, and, most of all, the notion that belief in the future of humanity is an act of faith most beautiful and deserving.