Loved it! I'm not a Hemingway fan but I liked the Key West setting and the strong female lead. ( )

Read until page 50 or so, but it just didn't grab me. Perhaps it's just not what I'm in the mood for at this time and I'm open to revisiting it in the future. Plan on seeing the author later this week at the Hemingway Foundation for a book signing event.

I have to admit that I have never read an Ernest Hemingway novel. I have read about him in school, I have seen movies based on his books, but somehow I have never actually read a whole book written by him. Not that I don't want to, there are novels by him I would love to read, it just never happened. But someday perhaps...

Hemingway's Girl is a sweet story set in Key West, Mariella Bennet is a nineteen-year-old girl who recently lost her father and is struggling to take care of her two sisters and her mother who is trying to cope with her husband's death. To earn more money she starts to work for the Hemingway family and she is from the very start attracted to Ernest Hemingway who is not only older but also married. So also meets a young ex-solder named Gavin Murray. And, she is torn between the two men. Love triangles are a very common concept both in books and movies. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. In this book, it works because I can understand Mariella's struggles. On one hand she has a safe man, who shares the same dreams as her on her other hand she has a boastful married writer full of vitality and energy. Personally, I found Hemingway to be a far more interesting character in this book (and in real life) than Gavin, but that just me.



If you like historical fiction about real life authors will probably enjoy this book! ( )

This was another great book by Erika Robuck. I fell in love with it and didn't want it to end. ( )

This is what good historical fiction does -- it uses documented events to expand a story leaving the reader longing to learn more.

Beginning with the year 1961 the main character Mariella Bennet, is emotionally rent when she learns that Ernest Hemingway has committed suicide by firing a gun into his mouth. Years ago, she was 19 and she had a strong friendship with Ernest Hemingway that would have crossed the line into a sexual bond, had she allowed Hemingway, a married man, to fulfill his intentions toward her. She became an employee of Hemingway's emotionally charged wife Pauline.

Mariella returned to the Florida Keys to show her son, Jack now 25, whose father had died of cancer, the life she lived there and to share her childhood and teen-aged memories.

The book then shifts to the 1930's when Hemingway was at his macho best. This was a time when he held sway at the local bars, when his charisma charmed all who happened to be in his sphere. Boasting loudly of fishing and hunting stories, he was at his physical prime. No one could beat him in boxing or any attempt to outshine and hold court.

A Cuban mother who dared to marry an American, her mother's family broke all ties when she disobeyed them. Her father was a fisherman who died, and after his death, Mariella family live in abject poverty , not unlike the majority of natives who inhabit the Florida Keys.

To support her family Mariella takes a job with the Hemingways because her mother's grief does not allow her to live a life without her husband. Through Mariella, we see the traumatic life of Ernest and Pauline, and we are privy to the antics of the rich circle of friends. With all the petty jealousies, rivalries, drinking to the point of passing out night after night, Ernest tells Mariella he was happier when poor. Pauline's money has lured him to a life of misery.

We see Ernest as the torn man he was. Underneath all the machismo, he is fearful that one day his physical mystic and daring bravado will end, and will leave him empty and alone. He is a man of myriad traits, one who can emotionally cut like a life, one who cares about none but himself, and he is a narcissistic man who lives only for his own needs. Hemingway is also savvy enough to relate to the poor of the Florida keys. But, as Mariella reminds him, only to use them as characters in his books.

Through Mariella''s relationship with a man who cares deeply, we see her struggle between the pull toward Ernest, and the inner knowledge that Gavin will treat her so much better, and in addition, unlike Hemingway, has the ability to care deeply for others.

It is through this character we learn of the terrible storm of the century, a hurricane that rips through the keys on Labor Day of 1935. The majority of those who died were the poor who lived there, and also found work when the U.S. government commissioned the building of a railroad. When the storm approached, the poor Vets (veterans) were left to die as the transportation promised never arrived.

An intensely detailed book, it took longer than usual to read because of all the details and in-depth portrayal of Hemingway, his hedonism and the life style of the rich, as well as Mariella and those who lived in the keys and barely eked out a living.

4.5 Stars! ( )