"I think I read that it was a winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, which is a prize in England awarded to female authors. I'm pretty sure that's like how it caught my eye. I'm now a big Ann Patchett fan, though.
Bel Canto is loosely based on a true crisis about ten years ago in Peru; there was a bunch of dignitaries and foreigners taken hostage at like an embassy party. For nine months, these very unlikely roommates end up becoming closer and closer as the standoff just drags on and on and on, and the government doesn't actually storm the house. It tells the story from both perspectives of hostage taker and hostage, and you end up seeing that after the first few weeks when the, whatever they are, the soldiers start not wearing their hats. Half of these soldiers are teenagers; a couple of them are girls. They're all like from such poor little villages, some of them haven't even like watched TV or used a bathtub in their life; and it really kind of opens your mind to the situations that even create these paramilitary groups, that why these things even happen.
The most beautiful part of the story is how, when the initial violence stops, once they've just been corralled in this space for months and months, people start making friends with the enemy. There even are some love stories between like soldiers and hostages, and people that you'd never expected to care about each other actually start caring about each other. When it comes to the end when maybe their situation will finally be put to a stop, the very people who were afraid of the soldiers in the beginning are actually hoping to protect them.
It's not a fast-moving book, so I'd recommend it to people who really like authors who include a lot of introspection. I think the Epilogue was unnecessary. When the compound is stormed, that should be the end of story. I would still give it five stars, just disregarding the last two pages. I still loved it."
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