After the Hurricane audiobook

Elena Vega reluctantly, painfully, heads to Puerto Rico in search of her father, Santiago Vega, Jr., who has disappeared. Puerto Rico is still in the early stages of trying to clean up and recover from Hurricane Maria, and Elena's increasingly detached relationship with her father over the previous years, not only makes the search difficult, but adds to the deeply untethered inner self against which Elena constantly struggles — almost unaware. "Investigating her father has reawakened her appetite for the past. If she can't have his, she wants everyone else's, she wants the island's." "Information is her currency." Ravaged by nature, the island itself is a hollowed-out reflection of Elena herself. Over the years, she has learned very little of her father's past — even her mother (before and since their divorce) honored Santiago's desire to begin life anew, fresh, and disentangled from his history. As Elena tries to gather clues, for relatives both living and dead, her pain at having been so resolutely fenced off from her father's past becomes increasingly painful, reinforcing her feelings of being unworthy and not belonging.Franqui has constructed a story with which I connected deeply — some areas more than others — and I found myself slowing down to savor this journey of self, through which Elena stumbles, gaining footing as she goes. Franqui's writing is beautiful, and though she focuses on pain and longing, she also takes the time to turn the page just a little and show the beauty of living. The pain of the blindingly bright, white light that hurts your eyes just as you emerge from some of the darkest tunnels in life.Not only did I love the story Franqui told through Elena and her father, but also the world she created between the triangle of an only child and her two divorced parents. The triangle of New York, Puerto Rico, and the limbo that exists between two worlds for many children of the United States. In its current state, the island is both beautiful and painfully sad. Elena, wrecked from the lack of the kind of nurturing she most needed and desired, begins to slowly recognize parts of herself she thought either didn't exist or she found lacking. This duality of beauty through destruction and how Elena's experience and current thoughts were mirrored alongside that of Puerto Rico's post-hurricane state was almost perfect. My one issue was the depth to which Franqui doled out the mirroring information about the history of Puerto Rico itself — reflective of Elena's discovery of her family's history and her father's past. Through a cousin's blog, Elena learns about the island's history — and I think this was a bit of a momentum-breaker in the story itself. Franqui transfers this info-dump into the story by way of Elena reading the blog entries, which are simply displayed within the body of the book. While the story itself was already a slower-paced, character-driven tale, winding its way across the island because of Elena, these pauses to inform the reader of history of the island and its people were a little long and a little too on the nose. However, pushing beyond these pauses, I could certainly appreciate how easy it was for Elena's hunger for information anywhere she could get it — so empty was she of it otherwise.Elena's journey across Puerto Rico is one of simultaneously searching for her missing father and searching for herself. She discovers relatives and friends of her father's she never knew existed; she clears out his house that has become nigh on unlivable with accumulated clutter; she reassesses what she thinks she knows about her father and who she thought she was. And, at the end, Elena's journey is simultaneously complete and just beginning — beautifully open to being rebuilt. This is my first novel by Franqui, but I'm absolutely going to check out her other books.I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.

Review to come in Booklist!

Having never been to Puerto Rico, I found it interesting to get a closer look at life there in contrast to life in the United States. Elena is Jewish-Latina, living in New York as an adult after her parents divorced when she was young. Her father Santiago Jr. returned to live in Puerto Rico and has had only periodical contact with his daughter but has now disappeared following Hurricane Maria. Her mother Rosalind, his ex-wife is concerned enough to ask Elena to travel from New York City to Puerto Rico to find him to make sure he is safe. Elena and her father never have had a great relationship due to his being an alcoholic and his struggles with mental health. When arriving in Puerto Rico, problems arise because Elena doesn’t know much about her father’s past or family in Puerto Rico as he (and her mother) had chosen to never speak about his past and childhood. So many secrets about people that Elena should know about but doesn’t causes her to be very angry at both her parents, and has always led her to be cautious to trust anyone. As Elena travels around the island searching for him, Elena discovers much about her father, but more about herself. In this story about family, we see twists and turns. It makes me thankful for my close family, yet aware there may be secrets in everyone’s history. The added element of Elena’s social platform postings describing Puerto Rico were enlightening and helped to discover what Elena was feeling she identified with what was written. How sad Santiago’s life was, given his mother’s mental illness, and how it affected his inability to love himself and others truly. When the author shows how his family embraces Elena, you can see that he really was rich if he only looked for it. This book kept me engaged until the end and left me a bit sad as there is no fairytale ending like we all seem to want. Many thanks to #netgalley #afterthehurricane #leahfranqui #harpercollins for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Elena has come back to Puerto Rico after receiving a call from her mom that her father is missing. She's unsure where to start. This is an island she doesn't know well and her father has been secretive her whole life, unwilling to tell her much about his family or his life before she was born. She isn't even sure where to start other than to go to the house he bought so long ago and see if it holds clues.This story is told in two timelines, two POV. One is Elena as she explores the house and the island, finding clues and off searching the next location to see if she can find him. The other POV is her father as a young man growing up on the island, his family and then his college years. As Elena searches for her father, she struggles to know him more and understand why he has hidden so much from her. I was instantly sucked in to the story, completely mesmerized by the island after a hurricane and how they are rebuilding but also struggling. I loved discovering all the secrets between the two - learning of the family and the island history from both POV. What a treasure of a story this is, with such a beautiful cover. I really liked this one!A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

This is the story about a man who is estranged from his only child, Elena, and Elena's search for him when he goes missing after hurricane Maria devastates Puerto Rico. Elena is a very sensitive person, she recognizes her emotions even if she doesn't know what to do with them. Where to put the pain, anger, and resentments she feels towards her father (and mother). Because all her life she's never known anything about her father Santiago's past. Everything has been kept from her and she feels untethered to anything. This is Elena's journey to find answers, her father, and Santiago's story. It is a good story that kept my interest, but near the end got choppy and confusing 3/4 of the way in.

I received a free copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway, but I will provide an honest review that does not reflect that fact. After the Hurricane explores the quest Elena Vega takes upon herself to locate her father, Santiago, after he goes missing in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. She flies to Puerto Rico from New York, where she has been living a directionless, unfulfilling life. Immediately one discovers that Elena isn’t just trying to determine her father’s physical whereabouts; she is on a much larger search for her father himself, and for herself as well. He has, for deep-seated reasons of his own, kept hidden from her everything about his troubled past, and to make matters worse, he is currently slipping away into a fog of alcohol-induced deterioration. Lacking access to her father’s full story, Elena feels like half of her own identity is missing. She truly knows nothing about him, who his parents were and how they affected him, what friends helped shape him, what led to her parents’ divorce, and maybe most importantly, what has caused her father to lose completely any focus on her to the point where he doesn’t seem to know anything about her in turn. They have become strangers to each other, and the anger, frustration and pain Elena experiences as a result is skillfully rendered by the author’s excellent writing. If I had to offer one criticism, it would be that the novel to me seemed overly long and very repetitive. Despite the good writing, I felt “told” over and over that Elena was angry and sad about her father’s absence in her life. I will go back now and read the reviews of others to see if I am alone in that assessment, which may be the case. However, on the positive side, I felt firmly placed in post-Maria Puerto Rico, and really enjoyed every description offered of the people and the place.

Wow! This is a new author for me and she certainly does her research well! This one covers so much and should probably come with a trigger warning, but, which one?? Dysfunctional families, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, mental illness, immigration, financial disparities and that's only the surface. That's not to say I didn't finish, I devoured it! So very well written and yet so relatable, never writing above the reader but certainly making one think. Does it have a happy ending, all tucked up with a bow?? Maybe, for some but it's really not the point. My favourite quote comes near the end; "Every immigrant has known the in between state of being, the futile hours and days and years and lives spent chasing enough; becoming enough." As always, many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review

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Puerto Rico has long been on my travel bucket list. If I wasn't so terrified of hurricanes, I'd even dreamed of retiring there. The destructive category four hurricane is an important piece of this story, but not the focus. Elena's search for her missing father is more a story of a young woman's search for her history and her fathers unknown heritage, than for him. His disappearance didn't seem particularly out of character considering his demons with alcohol and bipolar disorder.Elena's parents have been divorced awhile. Her mother, Rosalind, now lives in Philadelphia. Elena's great grand parents fled Russia and are Jewish. She has been raised with those traditions. Her father, Santiago, had returned to Puerto Rico after the divorce, despite spending his lifetime trying to escape. Elena lives and works in NY.Santiago is a complex, intelligent and secretive man. He comes from a poor, violent family of sugar cane workers. His mother was mentally unwell. He attended Stanford University and Yale Law School and became a lawyer. Much of the story describes his time in NY, then CA, the deep friendships he developed there and his early years with Rosalind. His character is not necessarily easy to relate to, to like or read about.Neither of Elena's parents have ever shared Santiago's family information with her. They took trips to Puerto Rico and she knows her father's family is still there, but nothing more significant. He even bought a dilapidated 1700s house there to restore.Rosalind phones Elena to relate that her father is missing and pleading for her to go to Puerto Rico to find him. Elena boards a plane to San Juan having not a clue where to look or who to ask about Santiago's whereabouts. Her journey around the island is emotionally wrought with newfound people and relatives of her father's Elena never knew existed. She stays at the old restored house which has again become a ruin.The story gives good insight into culture, customs and beliefs on the island. Having researched my own family ancestry and history pre-computer when people still wrote letters, it was moving to read about someone without that knowledge. The story made me appreciate all those stories of ancestors I was freely given. I can't fathom how strange it would feel to not have that. History, heritage and roots are important. The author, previously unknown to me, seemed to write with personal experience and soul.Thanks to NetGalley for the advantage digital copy of "After the Hurricane " by Leah Franqui and to HarperCollins Publishers. These are my honest personal thoughts and opinions given voluntarily.

Thank you to WilliamMorrow Books for the ARC.Good book. I don't read many books based in Puerto Rico and I found this one to be a real treat.The book was a bit slow in the beginning and the author did veer off the main storyline often detailing too much on family history. At times I was a bit confused as to who was related and found that some of the characters were unnecessary to the story.I do like how she finally grew up and came to terms with the relationship with her father. Sometimes it's not about ourselves and not knowing about the past can be a blessing in disguise.However, It did encourage me to want to learn more about my family history and visit Puerto Rico in the furure.

"Thank you, partner @bibliolifestyle @williammorrowbooks for providing me a copy of this book to honestly review""Puerto Ricans do not have good immigration stories because Puerto Ricans are not immigrants, we are migrants, and have been for over a century. To be born in Puerto Rico is to be born in the United States... except that most people don't know." Elena Vega finds herself traveling to Puerto Rico to look for her father, Santiago, who has gone missing after Hurricane Maria has devastating the island. All her life, she has felt a disconnect from her father who has kept his past a secret. As she searches for her father, she starts to uncover snippets of his past. These revelations help her understand his reasons for secrecy and also introduces her to family and friends she never knew existed. This story was an emotional ride. Although a work of fiction, the author states that she used her personal experiences to create this story. As the above quote suggests, the heart of this story lies in identity crisis and guilt - in addition to family issues and mental health. The main character, Elena, struggles to weave her Jewish and Puerto Rican cultures, while her father has spent his life attempting to disconnect from his upbringing - and is haunted by guilt for his acquired successes. As a Puerto Rican woman from Philadelphia, I was immediately able to connect with Elena - and empathize with some of the sentiments her and her father are dealing with. The ending realistically wrapped up Elena's journey and sheds a light on accepting and embracing where we come from and where we end up.

4.5 star book for me, rounded to 5 starsAfter the Hurricane is another beautifully written book by Leah Franqui. This time, she takes us into the lives of a father and daughter, Santiago and Elena. She's 30 years old, working in NYC but not living a satisfied or complete life. Her relationship with her father has always been a complicated one, hampered by his somewhat functional alcoholism and mental health issues. The opening scene with Elena and Santiago at lunch was so poignant. Santiago disappears after that point, back to Puerto Rico, and their relationship after that point becomes almost non-existent. Elena was accepting of that, until Hurricane Maria hits the island and nobody can find her father. At the urging of her mother, Elena goes to Puerto Rico to make sure Santiago is alive. Along the way, she learns about her father and her family history, and attempts to make sense of it all.The book is beautifully written and captures the mystique of Puerto Rico and the deep challenges often evoked with dysfunctional family relationships and history. There are times when I wanted to shake the characters to wake up, and times I wanted to hug them in caring and sympathy. The family relationships were complex and a family tree would have been useful!I've loved all of Ms. Franqui's books and look forward to reading whatever she writes next!Thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins for the opportunity to read After the Hurricane in exchange for an honest review.

I was provided a free advanced copy of this book from @netgalley in exchange for my honest review. This story follows Elena Vega on her journey of discovery. After Hurricane Maria hits her "native" Puerto Rico, her estranged father, Santiago, goes missing. She travels to the island to find him, find herself, and hopefully piece together her history. This was a bit of a slow burn and I struggled initially with connecting to the storyline. However, as the story progressed I became more and more invested in discovering Elena's history, as well as Santiago's story. I liked the way that we found out bits and pieces of Santiago's story in a backwards timeline interspersed throughout. It helped fill us in with his life as Elena was learning about it too. I recently read Infinite Country and saw a lot of similar themes of identity within a culture, people group, and country of residence. It was interesting to read about those topics again, with new perspectives. Elena struggles with her Puerto Rican heritage as she never lived there, struggles speaking Spanish, and knows very little about her family. As she discovers more about her father, the island, and her own personal history, she begins to better understand the identity struggles she has been dealing with into adulthood. I would definitely recommend this book and also think it would be a great book for a book club as there would be a lot to discuss!Luckily for you, I was a bit late in finishing this and it was published yesterday, so you can already go grab it and start reading!!#NetGalley #AfterTheHurricane

The blurb: From the outside, Elena Vega’s life appears to be an easy one: the only child of two professional parents, private school, NYU. But her twenties are aimless and lacking in connection. Something has always been amiss in her life: her father, the brilliant but deeply troubled Santiago Vega...Then Hurricane Maria strikes, and Santiago vanishes. Desperate to know what happened to the father she once adored, Elena returns to Puerto Rico, a place she loved as a child but hasn’t seen in years. There she must unravel the truth about who her father is, crisscrossing the storm-swept island and reaching deep into his family tree to find relatives she’s never met, each of whom seems to possess a clue about Santiago’s fate."The author possesses a wonderful ability to describe the island of Puerto RIco from her memories as a child to the reality of post Hurricane Maria. I highlighted so many sections of beautiful writing. The author's characterizations were unique and interesting. These two items kept me reading, although I did put the book down several times because the main character, Elena, mulled over so many things, over and over. This had me skimming paragraphs of her interior monologue. If you enjoy literary works, this is the novel for you. If you enjoy learning the history of a place this is the book for you too. Thank you to NetGalley for the e-arc.

Thank you to William Morrow, NetGalley and Book Club Girls for this ARC.I really loved this book. I liked Franqui's "America for Beginners" but this is a level up. "After the Hurricane" tells the story of Elena, a cautious young woman, in search of her volatile, estranged father, who has gone missing in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. In her quest to find him, Elena finally learns more about the enigmatic man and how the island, which she infrequently visited growing up, plays a such a large role in her life and her heritage.At points, I did struggle with the fact that Santiago's story was being told backward, but by the end I appreciated the circular nature of the entire narrative, almost like a hurricane's twisting winds. In the author's note, Franqui says she tried to write this as a movie script at one point and while I am glad it is a novel, I bet this would make for a great screen adaptation in some form!

I received a copy of this book from Goodreads in exchange for a review.When Elena sets out to locate her father after hurricane Maria tore through Puerto Rico, she never thought she would be taken down a rabbit hole of discovery. When she enters her father’s San Juan house, all she finds is the detritus of his life. The whole house is a jumbled mess, the clutter of broken and whole objects, just like her father’s mind. But are there clues in all the confusion? Hints of his past? Hints that point out where he might be?This story takes the reader on a trip of discovery, a personal mission of a daughter trying to figure out who her father is. What his past is. It’s an emotional journey for Elena, as well as the reader, as step by step, we follow along as bits and pieces of the past are revealed. This story is touching, emotional, and often heart-breaking.It’s a journey of discovery, of her father’s family, of her father’s story, and, just maybe of her own story.

Wow! This is a new author for me and she certainly does her research well! This one covers so much and should probably come with a trigger warning, but, which one?? Dysfunctional families, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, mental illness, immigration, financial disparities and that's only the surface. That's not to say I didn't finish, I devoured it! So very well written and yet so relatable, never writing above the reader but certainly making one think. Does it have a happy ending, all tucked up with a bow?? Maybe, for some but it's really not the point. My favourite quote comes near the end; "Every immigrant has known the in between state of being, the futile hours and days and years and lives spent chasing enough; becoming enough." As always, many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review