The Fountains of Silence

 The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys, 512 pages.

In 1957 Spain is ruled by dictator Francisco Franco and there are many things Spaniards aren't allowed to do or say. At the same time, Spain has recently opened up to American business, and the tension between the worlds of the American tourists and the employees at the hotels they stay at a palpable. In the summer of 1957, aspiring photojournalist Daniel comes to Madrid with his parents, and quickly stumbles on some of the stories that Franco would rather the world didn't see. One of his windows into these stories is Ana, a maid at the hotel who wants nothing more than to see the world, and her brother Rafa, who works at a slaughterhouse and a graveyard while training his best friend to be a matador. Sepetys artfully weaves stories of a number of a number of characters with different beliefs from all over Madrid (along with excerpts from primary source documents about the period) into an engaging story that is also a very informative history of a little known time.

I feel like this book is an example of where Sepetys really shines, and found it overall stronger than I Must Betray You. This book is, like all of her others, very informative and very sad, and I definitely found myself drawn into Daniel's story in particular. This book is very multifaceted, and definitely worth the read.