Marlene and Sofia: A Double Love Story

Barrento is both author and fictional protagonist in this tale. He is a writer in Portugal to whom the mysterious (and near monopolistic) Writers Guild, controller of all stories and authorizer of all publishing, assigns a romance that he doesn’t see as having a chance of success. What he soon realizes is that his assignment is a sham: the guild president has a forbidden book and wants Barrento to submit it under his name. Barrento resists and writes his own book, using the president’s characters. His story is about two women: Marlene, a seductress, and her drug-addled computer programmer boyfriend, Tiago. Barrento (the actual author) does a solid job handling the narrative, revisiting common themes and showing how life influences art. That said, it feels like he does his book (and the book within the book) short shrift. Barrento (the character) experiences no meaningful consequences from going against the guild. As an actual author, his characters are not given room to grow, despite having some genuinely interesting themes to explore, such as technological voyeurism. Readers will wish that they’d gotten more of both Barrentos’ stories, rather than half of each. [em](BookLife) [/em]