Official Review: The other Earth by Piroska Rodriguez

[Little House]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The other Earth" by Piroska Rodriguez.]

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The Other Earth by Piroska Rodriguez is a sweet coming of age story about a little girl named Pilar. Pilar has a friend on the other Earth. No one believes that she goes there or even that he really exists, but he is the best friend that she could ever have. Pilar and Remy have many adventures and Pilar is a better little girl because of them. As is bound to happen, things change for Pilar as she grows up. Will she remember the friend of her childhood? Will she remember the purpose of her life?

Other Earth was translated from Spanish and in this case, everything was lost in the translation. At first I wondered if this was a children's book as the reading level seemed to be low, but in other places, the translator uses words that no child would understand. As I read the book I came to realize that the translator just did a bad job. There are many grammar mistakes, many instances of the use of the wrong tense, the occasional mix up of he and she, and often things are said in a way that is not quite right. I understand what the translator meant, but I reword it in my head. That took a lot of the enjoyment out of this book for me.

The things that Pilar does make her a very believable character, but the way she talks does not. The poor translation makes her sound like an adult one second and someone whose first language is not English the next. Because Remy is from the other Earth, the language problems were not quite so noticeable with him. Maybe everyone there talks like that.

Because I was re-translating everything in my head as I read, I do believe that much of the story got lost. It seemed to be a simplistic plot, but I doubt that it was in the original. I loved the story idea, and I do think that this could be a great book if the translation was cleaned up. Pilar finds out the purpose of her life, and strives to remember it. This is a goal worthy of anyone.

Because there is a good story underlying all the translation issues that this book has, I can't give it just one star. I did enjoy the book. But because of all the translation problems, I really cannot recommend it to anyone else. I rate it 2 out of 4 stars.

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