Take Me with You: A Secret Search for Family in a Forbidden Cuba

Amazing memoir of a voyage to discover ancestral homeland roots for the son of a Cuban exile family. It captured the complexities of my psyche as if I were in the author's conundrums on his journey. Being that I too am a 1st generation American, son of Cuban exiles in this country I could totally relate and feel raw and powerful emotions reading this story. The book of his journey through some of modern Cuba is at times heartbreaking, funny, compelling and poignant. Overall though it was a joy to read when it was released and I just read it again.

I thought this was a very good book if you want to know about the lives of everyday Cubans in the Havana area of Cuba. Politics aside, I read this type of book for what I can learn about the real Cuba and the lives of average Cubans. What Cuba needed in the 50's when the Batista ruled was real democratic reform. What they got instead was Fidel Castro....without question a much worse fate. Cubans have had to live with the daily lies and broken promises for more than 50 years of the Castro regime. Predictably, over the years, many Cubans have gone over to the "revolution side" in order to somewhat better their own lives as they sell out their neighbors' rights and personal freedoms.But gladly, this is not a book about politics, or about whether the Castro brothers regime is bad as they appear to be or if the US is the "big bad wolf" that they would have everyone in Cuba believe.Instead, the book is about an author's awakening into another world that his family's past and present. Most Americans who have not traveled much outside the US have only a fuzzy picture of what other countries are really like on an everyday basis, particularly a third-world country like Cuba. This book is a revelation into the lives of one particular extended family, who for the most part are not part of the party privileged in modern day Cuba. Although a heart-warming account of one man's rebirth or reconnection to his roots in another country, if not another world, to me the insights and short accounts of everyday life and glimpses of Cuban life provide the most interesting part of the book.

This is a well-written and very moving book. The newly-developing connections between family members across a 90 mile body of water give poignant life to "Take Me With You."The secondary story, and to my mind, the most important part, is that the book lets a breathe of fresh air into America's view of a sealed country. I was particularly struck by the two-faced nature of Castro's Cuba. The Cuba seen by tourists is a stage set.The houses on Elian Gonzale's street are painted and repaired so news casts shown in the rest of the world will present a nice image of Cuba. The infrastructure and houses in the neighborhoods of the ordinary folks are crumbling and decaying. The facade continues with churches, hotels and restaurants that only tourists are allowed to visit.The deprivations in terms of meat, medical supplies and adequate modern sewer systems is inexcusable, and Frias's expressed need of protecting his Cuban cousins by using fictive names is tragic. The neighborhood watch that squeals on its neighbors and the author's fear that his journals will be found in his suitcase are chilling.This book by a Cuban-American will make the reader more appreciative of life in the United States and of the resilience of every day Cubans who must "go along to get along."This book is an excellent companion piece to "This is Cuba" by Ben Corbett. Both books will leave you amazed and angry.Kim BurdickStanton, Delaware

This book is so well written that I finished the book in two days. You see the side of Cuba that Castro doesn't want anyone to see in this book. But you also get a glimpse into an extended family that defies ethnicity.The book reads like a novel, although it is nonfiction. The author weaves humor into a story that is both tragic and uplifting. The setting is Cuba, but it could be any country from which Americans have immigrated. By the end of the story, I was left with a feeling of hope for the future of the author and his family.I highly recommend this book!

Overall the book reads well, but it's not a great story. It just describes the 10 day trip a journalist, son of exiled Cubans, took during 2006. The description of the people (warm and friendly and making do) and the decay of the houses, streets, is quite accurate. However the story is focused on what happened to the journalist family business in Cuba after 1963 and the friends and relatives that stayed. It lacks a real plot and it is somewhat biased (the father was in prison and the family had to leave Cuba ) so I tended to get distracted and, although I did finish the book I can't say that it held my interest. If you are really interested in the story of Cuba I think that "Cuba: A New History" is a much better read. On the other hand, if you want to know a bit about how the Cuban exiles feel and why the Cuban embargo still exists, this book may be useful.

I was impressed with Carlos Frias's exacting prose and attention to detail, but what moved me about Take Me with You was the writer's heartrending desire to know his family history, even the troublesome episodes. His story slowly drew me into the tragedy of a family divided by time and politics and geography. By the end, I, too, felt like weeping for what had been lost to good people in both America and Cuba. The tenderness and love among the Frias clan was palpable and inspiring. I believe this memoir would be an important edition to a college history or Spanish language curriculum because it transports one to a place that is mostly mysterious to those of us who may never be allowed to go there. The sights, sounds, and smells of the place come alive, and it is as close as one will get to walking down a tree-lined boulevard in old Havana. Unfortunately, I don't have an ounce of Cuban blood in my veins, but Carlos's book makes me yearn to go there. Thank you, Carlos, for "taking me with you."

I tell anyone who has been to Cuba or who plans to go that they must read this. In addition to affording insight into the realities of life in Cuba, this is a compelling work about families separated by distance that involves more than geography. I laughed. I cried. I highly recommend this book. Change is coming. Read this book if you have any wish to try to understand what it means to be Cuban.