The Heart Has Its Reasons: A Novel

I totally enjoyed reading this novel. I bought it for an online book group and expected a light story with not much substance. There's lots of substance as each person is well developed. The main topic is about a middle aged Spanish woman, a professor of linguistics with a successful career who has her ups and downs. Reader gets to see a bit of how the educational system is structured and also some Spanish history as part of the story revolves around a Spanish professor who has a falling out with the Spanish Communist Party after WWII. Characters are very well developed and the story line is woven so that the ending is a good one. I recommend this novel and plan to buy Duenas other novels. It is a wonderfully easy read as Duenas is an excellent writer.

Such a disappointment. Her first book was one of my favorites ever. I have given it as gifts to so many people. An underlying problem is that the English translation of the newer book, done by a different person, was godawful - riddled with mistakes and poor English -- I cannot believe that this translator is a native speaker of English. This book had little to care about. Characters were trivial, plot naive about California culture, glorifies missions (with a few exculpatory sentences that look like they were added after someone pointed out the problem to her). Second novels are tough. If she writes a third one, my advice is to definitely get a new translator but this whole book is just off.

Although most certainly not as deep as her first book"A time in between", "The heart has its reasons" was well written and the characters were believable. The English translation left quite a few gaps, unfortunately. I would rate it 4 1/2 stars. I am now in the middle of her third book "The vineyard", and can say BRAVO! you're back to a solid 5 star rating with that one!

Rarely do I abandon a book midway through, but this was so boring that I gave up slightly before the halfway point. I wanted to like this book because I just finished reading her other book, The Vineyard, which I loved! This story held very little interest for me and of the 3 main characters (thus far), I just couldn't relate to any of them, nor care what happened next. Glad I quit, but disappointed to have wasted $13 and a good amount of my time.

This book was so bad I could not finish it-unheard of for me. I started underlining all the adjective laden sentences before I pitched it across the room. We read it for a book club meeting and only 3 members finished. Everyone else gave up. We all grew bored with the characters and did not care what happened to them.

I read this book after reading The Time In Between by the same author. It is a good read, shorter, less deep but still very interesting. Duenas has a knack for nailing the complexities in relationships between characters. They are believable and refreshing. She brings a lot of originality to her writing. I will continue to look for other work from her. I truly enjoy her writing!

I am an avid reader but this book, a translation, has only just begun to be interesting and I have read nearly 200 pages. Reading for my book club or I would have given up long ago. Feel guilty spending time on a book that still has nothing I can grab ahold of. A minor bit of history which I am hoping gets better if I finish it. I will not read anything else by her.

Really enjoyed the storyline but it took me awhile to get into the back and forth of times and characters. Stick with it for an emotional ride and fascinating characters.

Excellent . Very well written.

Second book by this author. Always great to find a new author, especially when the prose is so good.

This one is not so interesting

Very boring ... Kept reading in the hope that the story line would become interesting. Stick to the author's other book.

Wonderful. Heartbreaking. Exciting.