Kiss and Tango: Looking for Love in Buenos Aires by Marina Palmer Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.92 You Save: $20.03 (80%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.42 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Kiss and Tango: Looking for Love in Buenos Aires
Book Review: Nice reflection on a wonderful city....
Summary: 5 Stars
I am American and I am married to a beautiful Argentine woman. I met her on a vacation to Argentina in 2000. Like the author Christina Palmer I fell in love with the country, its people and its culture on my first visit. While I don't Tango I love watching it done well and the soulful strains of Tango music. I travel to Buenos Aires every year. It is the best kept travel secret in the world. Amazingly affordable city that is sophisticated, cultured and lots of fun. The food, the wine, the warmth of the people is amazing. I welcome this book because I believe there is a lack of good contemporary English language writing about Argentina. Her observations about Buenos Aires and its people and their behavior are spot on if written from an American perspective. This book is fun, informative and what travel memoirs should be. It chronicles the passage of Palmer though Buenos Aires, the dance she loves and a rediscovery of herself. Well done Christina. Book Review: Cover, Five Star.....Content, One Star
Summary: 1 Stars
Kiss and Tango was the title selected for September in my monthly book club. The women in our Club are rather diverse in their personal literary interests, but share a passion for reading on and discussing virtually any genre or topic. When I read the review of this book in particular, I was excited to note that the author and I share an international background, a love/hate relationship with a fast-paced job, an escapism side, and an appreciation for the expressiveness of dance. My excitement dissipated shortly after I opened the cover and started reading. Irritation began immediately with the inconsistency in simple structure of the storytelling - it attempted to follow a diary-entry-esque format, but didn't read like one. It wandered in and out of formats, much like an unedited, first novel might, but I don't expect my hardcopy, store-purchased book to read like a 1st draft. Strike one, but not a deal-breaker. Strike two was my early realization that the main character is a dreadful, narcissistic woman who I would probably not even want as a casual acquaintance, let alone be curious about her personal story. If the character were fictitious, this would perhaps have been more palatable (I could have then at least pretended this was creatively purposeful), but the author was, in fact, writing about herself. I quickly tired of her self-absorbed statements followed by poorly-executed attempts to show vulnerability (as if someone had given her the advice to insert commentary here and there to "appear deep and real"...) and decided by page 50 that I had no interest in hearing more. But duty called, and I powered on for the sake of book club conversation. I began setting goals for myself - baby steps - to make it through this dreadful book...."just 10 more pages"..."just make it to page 80"..."c'mon, you can get to 100"...the last-ditch motivational tactic I used on myself was to at least read it for the sex scenes. I finally surrendered when I came to the conclusion that she is unable to write descriptively and compellingly about the subject of seduction that is at the very heart of the tango itself. Strike 1000. I swallowed my pride and went to book club, admitting that I was not able to finish the book. Interestingly, only one out of ten women in my book club had the masochistic endurance to finish it - a book club first. We spent (wasted?) about 30 minutes of our evening together comparing observations and shortcomings, then proceeded to eat our Argentinean food, drink lots of red wine, and talk about everything...but...this...book. Book Review: The True Confessions of a Tango Slut
Summary: 2 Stars
Neil's Book Review of Marina Palmer's "Kiss & Tango"
I liked the web site www.kissandtango.com.
I liked the dust jacket cover photo and the photo of the author.
I liked the fact that Marina was half Greek.
I liked the fact that she had the courage to follow her dream even though it was subsidized by her parents.
I liked the fact that she had the discipline to write a book during her year in Buenos Aires.
I liked the fact that all names and occasional details were changed to protect the privacy of the individuals, especially regarding the size of the men's penises.
I agreed with her lover Ezequiel when he said that she should keep her knees together and when he concluded that she was a whore despite the pain that she felt in her heart with that breakup.
I felt sorry for Marina's Mother. But I felt especially sorry for her Father.
I posted the Amazon link to Marina's book on my blog but that was before I had read her book. After I read it, I took the link down and posted Cherie's review below.
In fairness to the reader, the title should have been "Sex & Tango" or "The True Confessions of a Tango Slut."
My conclusions are:
1. Sex sells.
2. I need more sex in my blog
(www.milongasblog.com)
3. I need more sex.
Book Review: Kiss and Tango
Summary: 1 Stars
Dissapointing, was expecting something else. The way she wrote her story/experience she sounded like an empty headed woman.Book Review: Sex and the Spoiled-Little-Rich Girl
Summary: 1 Stars
Sorry to bring a little reality to the heavy-breathing enthusiasm, but I had hoped this book would be a little bit about tango.
Instead it's the tale of a spoiled thirty-year-old (!) "girl" who talks her wealthy family into supporting her whim of becoming a professional tango dancer in Buenos Aires. Along the way to the realization two years later that it will never happen, she seduces and sleeps with every Argentine male she can get her hands on, even the delivery boy.
Without previous dance training (she worked in advertising in New York), she had a fantasy of dancing on stage, and at the same time, of finding her "Other Half of the Orange" who also is a Tango God.
Set up comfortably in a luxury apartment and spending her parents' $2,000 U.S. per month on tango classes, shoes and cafes con leche, she brings man after man to her bed, and sometimes two at a time, and doesn't spare us the details.
The book only gets interesting at the end when the Economic Crisis hits Argentina in 2001, but running from the turmoil, Marina quickly escapes to her relatives' elegant country ranch far from the disquieting events in the city. And then, giving up the dream, she returns to the States.
The writing is full of cliches, the lovers are indistinguishable, the women invariably turn out to be "bitches."
So I'm still waiting for someone to write about Argentine Tango in Buenos Aires. Slutty sex is everywhere.