Scan barcode
A review by fedelikeslego
Le mani piccole by Andrés Barba
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I rarely, rarely, give 5 stars but I think that this book really deserves it. I read a digital copy on my laptop and I wish I had a physical copy to annotate because there's so much to say about it.
This book is a ~60 pages short story, and it is amazingly executed. The prose is flawless, the story is so touching and I would recommend it to anyone. I think that this book can have the same impact as classic because that's what you use to analyse the "contemporary" society (in this case, our time, since the book was published in 2008). I'm not saying this because of the book itself, I'm thinking about how people reacted to this book. You can easily see why I'm saying that just reading some of the other reviews.
I honestly think that most people didn't get this book, and I can understand why since it's advertised as an horror book. People had fake expectation. "Such small hand" can be considered an horror since the tough topics that it faces, but that's not the main genre. Another big problem that I think impacted some of the reviews is the lack of empathy, which is such a big problem now days. A lot people asked for more details about the characters' violent backstories, but that's not needed because cruelty and suffering it's not entertainment, and true crime is a perfect example of that.
This book is about kids living with their trauma, it's about how trauma can impact you as a person. It's about young, small girls living in an orphanage and experiencing the world for the first time. They can't tell whats right from wrong because they all suffered. This girls don't have any parental figure to talk to, they just have each other's trauma to live with, and that is not helping them overcoming their past. Andrés Barba did an amazing, flawless job giving us enough information to understand everything about the story without unnecessary "bloody" details (I didn't see that in media in such a long time, that's my number one turn-off while consuming any type of media). One of the girls believe that loving someone means to make them suffer, that's why she bully and physically torture her friends, that's probably what she experienced for all of her life. If you read between the lines you can understand it so easily, it's crystal clear.
I really enjoyed the story, it's about a 7 years old girl, called Marina, which has to live in an orphanage after the death of her parents. In the book there's an alternation of Marina's point of view and the other girls' point of view. I really liked how this was executed because it's done neatly and it doesn't feel like jumping in to a different story each time (like it happens in most books). This works perfectly because there's only one story, and there's only one side of it: this kids are all violent, they're abusive, but they don't really mean it, that's all they've ever known. The ending is tough, but it's also "fair", because it is super faithful to what has happened in the rest of the book.
So... should you read it? Yes, definitely. It's not the greatest thing you'll ever read but keep in mind what I said, and that will probably give you another point of view of this amazing story. Hope you like it <3.
P.s. even though you'll probably not care: the first time I wrote this review I erroneously refreshed the page as I was finishing it. It was gone. I cried for hours because english is not my mother tongue and I spent hours translating and correcting this thing. It was all gone, it's still gone and this thing isn't as great as the other one, there's so many aspects I don't remember. My mind is boiling and I honestly don't give a f*** anymore, I did my best.
This book is a ~60 pages short story, and it is amazingly executed. The prose is flawless, the story is so touching and I would recommend it to anyone. I think that this book can have the same impact as classic because that's what you use to analyse the "contemporary" society (in this case, our time, since the book was published in 2008). I'm not saying this because of the book itself, I'm thinking about how people reacted to this book. You can easily see why I'm saying that just reading some of the other reviews.
I honestly think that most people didn't get this book, and I can understand why since it's advertised as an horror book. People had fake expectation. "Such small hand" can be considered an horror since the tough topics that it faces, but that's not the main genre. Another big problem that I think impacted some of the reviews is the lack of empathy, which is such a big problem now days. A lot people asked for more details about the characters' violent backstories, but that's not needed because cruelty and suffering it's not entertainment, and true crime is a perfect example of that.
This book is about kids living with their trauma, it's about how trauma can impact you as a person. It's about young, small girls living in an orphanage and experiencing the world for the first time. They can't tell whats right from wrong because they all suffered. This girls don't have any parental figure to talk to, they just have each other's trauma to live with, and that is not helping them overcoming their past. Andrés Barba did an amazing, flawless job giving us enough information to understand everything about the story without unnecessary "bloody" details (I didn't see that in media in such a long time, that's my number one turn-off while consuming any type of media).
I really enjoyed the story, it's about a 7 years old girl, called Marina, which has to live in an orphanage after the death of her parents. In the book there's an alternation of Marina's point of view and the other girls' point of view. I really liked how this was executed because it's done neatly and it doesn't feel like jumping in to a different story each time (like it happens in most books). This works perfectly because there's only one story, and there's only one side of it: this kids are all violent, they're abusive, but they don't really mean it, that's all they've ever known. The ending is tough, but it's also "fair", because it is super faithful to what has happened in the rest of the book.
So... should you read it? Yes, definitely. It's not the greatest thing you'll ever read but keep in mind what I said, and that will probably give you another point of view of this amazing story. Hope you like it <3.
P.s. even though you'll probably not care: the first time I wrote this review I erroneously refreshed the page as I was finishing it. It was gone. I cried for hours because english is not my mother tongue and I spent hours translating and correcting this thing. It was all gone, it's still gone and this thing isn't as great as the other one, there's so many aspects I don't remember. My mind is boiling and I honestly don't give a f*** anymore, I did my best.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment
Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Blood