The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao: The International Bestseller, now a major motion picture Paperback – October 9, 2018

"When Euridice set her mind to something, the rest of the world became smoke."The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao, Martha Batalha, (Translated by Eric M.B. Becker)The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao is a humorous and quirky novel. What originally caught my attention was the gorgeous cover. Being Dominican-American I am familiar with "rolos" aka hair rollers. This is Batalha's first novel (translated by Eric M.B. Becker) and I dig her unique anecdotes and wry humor. Sisters, Euridice and Guida are beautiful, intelligent, and rebellious (my kind of gals). I fell in love with Euridice and found myself cheering for her throughout the novel. You see, although Euridice is a housewife in Brazil in the 1940's, she is also a genius full of tremendous capabilities. She feels bored and dissatisfied being a housewife and yearns to do so much more! And whatever Euridice puts her mind to, she conquers. Sadly, Euridice's aspirations are not deemed important by her husband, Antenor. As the sole provider, Antenor demands Euridice to raise their two kids, and take care of the family (period). However, Euridice pays him no mind and this is where the adventure begins. She becomes a master chef, then a seamstress, and finally a writer (with lots happening in between). I absolutely love and recommend this charming, quirky, witty novel. I look forward to additional stories by this innovative and unique author. I'm in luck because according to her website she's currently working on her second novel. WOOHOO :-)

To paraphrase Mick Jagger, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime you just might find you get what you need."Alas, not so for Euridice Gusmao.I read this book in less than one day. I could not stop. Ms Batalha is a very good writer. The way she explains about other characters; how they came to be or in the more popular vernacular "their backstory" is excellent.I just did not like any of the characters in the book. It was hard to feel any compassion for Euridice who sacrificed her abilities, her capabilities, her self esteem to make up for "the sins" of her sister.That she then embraces the return of this sister later in the novel is confounding.Filomena, the cavity prone prostitute seems to be the most admirable and thus most likeable character in the work.I do recommend the novel and hope to read more from Ms Batalha in the future.The reader is hard pressed to feel any compassion for Euridice.She is a victim of herself.

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao is set in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, in the 1940s. This is the life of two sisters: ambitious and brilliant-minded Euridice Gusmao and the sprightly free-spirited Guida Gusmao. Euridice is married to Antenor Campelo and Guida is married to Marcos Godoy de Moraes.Her husband laughs wihen Euridice says she wants to have her recipes published, so she continues to cook for her family - her daughter Cecilia and her son Afonso. But she needs a new project. Maybe dressmaking. Soon she has a dress for every day of the week. She thinks she could make dresses for her friends, but her husband got very angry about that.Guida is a doctor’s wife living a frugal life near Botafogo far away from her sister. When her husband abandons her, she returns to her family home with her sick son Francisco (Chico), back to the comfort of Euridice. The two rebellious sisters are back together again.The only one who seems to understand Euridice’s eccentricities is her nephew Chico. Guida, free of her husband, begins a new plan for the future. But Guida’s plan has far-reaching consequences.This is a short dark-humoured novel about freedom.

Truly a page turner. Her vivid description of characters makes you feel like these people are right in your home. The author has a great sense of comedy and the psychology of what made these people tick. Which makes every introduction of a new character an absolute treat. In a line or two, boom, you exactly know what kind of human has entered the scene. I will look for other books by this author for sure!

I have just read this book (99p on Kindle), set in the 1940s in Rio de Janeiro – I can’t speak of it too highly, it’s stunningly good! – Talented Brazilian writer and talented translator (from the Portuguese). The narrative initially seems multi-stranded but the main story of Euridice and her sister Guida begins to form and then supplies the backbone of the novel. The easy to read prose is to die for and mainly very funny. The subject matter is the sisters’ development of becoming themselves in a sexist, restrictive and conservative society, but also deals with life and death, poverty (plus survival) and riches (plus entitlement), health and sickness etc. and being resilient in a neighbourhood of gossips (often spreading malicious gossip). (Poor neighbourhoods in 1940s Rio are also very generous to those down on their luck). I hope I can tempt you to read it...

I loved it with its quirky sense of humor... one can't help but feel sorry for Euridice....did she ever achieve anything for herself in her life except tack tack tack tack

Extraordinary history. I read very quick because the history flows fantasticallyI really recommend for everyone woh likes Brazilian description.

I was not enamoured by this book sadly. We had it for our book club read and, although I bothered to finish it, I could well not have, I could not engage with the characters at all. The women I did not think were empowered despite this being sold as a women’s lib type of story. The time and place were all too obvious. I hope there are at least some Brazilian men nowadays who do not treat their wives with such disdain! I wonder whether all the interest suddenly in Brazil is the Rio effect? I for example have found it hard to find any decent online Portuguese language software that isn’t Brazilian!

Fun book