Her favourite one was Ena, whom she became quite close to. But, in order to free herself from Angustias’s pressure to act in a demure way, she started to forge friendships at university, while before she had avoided speaking to her colleagues. They all seemed to be on the verge of madness to some extent.ĭespite having a huge desire to be free and to become her own person, Andrea really didn’t know how to achieve that at first. It was via their interactions with Andrea that I started forming my own opinions about them, which made me feel involved in the story. In fact, that happens with the other members of the family as well. These characteristics can be inferred from her actions and are not straightforwardly penned. She was authoritarian, seemed to be fairly conservative and kept trying to repress Andrea. The first character Andrea had to learn to deal with was Angustias. But, from early on, it became apparent that there was a conflict between Juan and Román involving Gloria. One of the allures of this book is to discover the characters’ personalities and back stories while reading, so I won’t say much about them. At the time of her arrival, seven people lived there already – her grandmother, her aunt Angustias, her uncles Román and Juan, plus his wife Gloria and their son, and Antonia, the housemaid.

She was staying with close relatives at their house on Aribau Street. Although she felt anxious, she quickly became enchanted by the city.

Being an orphan living on a meagre pension, she struggled to reconcile poverty and hunger with her friends’ way of life.Īndrea arrived in Barcelona alone to start anew and attend university. This is the story of a young woman who was trying to become independent. Andrea, the main character in this novel, had a year full of new experiences, but the way in which they are narrated made them feel almost ordinary, when in fact much changed in her life.

That sensation is not really accurate, though. The evening after I finished reading Nada by the Spanish writer Carmen Laforet, I was under the impression that nothing exceptionally memorable had happened plot-wise throughout the book.

Nada por carmen laforet