"One part Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, one part Paul Haggis's Crash, the rest is all David Trueba, modern day Madrid, and A Narrative that Pulsates with Longing, Lust, and Simmering Rage. Don't dare pick it up if you have plans for the weekend, or for the rest of the day for that matter. It's that good. I was casting the adaptation in my mind as I tore through it. Vivid, Real, and Raw, the novel is at once unsparing and entirely humane. Simply masterful."-Joe Mcginniss, Jr., Author of the Delivery Man<BR><BR>"David Trueba has devised a Complex Tale about our present: about old age, about lost illusions, about illness, about what it's like to be an immigrant...There's no lasting bitterness in Learning to Lose. There's injustice, there's a certain psychological and physical cruelty. But no bitterness. There is sadness in some of those who win. And, above all, the silent wisdom of those who bear the consequences of what befalls them. An Excellent Novel." -El Pais<BR><BR>It is Sylvia's Sixteenth Birthday, and her life as an adult is about to begin- not with the party she had been planning, but with a car accident and a broken leg. Behind the wheel is a talented young soccer player, just arrived from Buenos Aires and set for stardom on and off the field. As their destinies collide and a young romance is set in motion, across town, Sylvia's father and grandfather are finding their own lives suddenly derailed by a violent murder and a secret affair with a prostitute.<BR><BR>Set against the Maze of Madrid's congested and contested streets, Learning to Lose follows these four individuals as they swerve off course in unexpected directions. Each of them is dodging guilt and the fear of failure, but their shared search for happiness, love, purity, redemption, and, above all, a way to survive, forms a taut narrative web that binds them together.<BR><BR>From one of Spain's most Celebrated contemporary writers, Learning to Lose is a lucid and gripping view into the complexities of lives overturned and the capriciousness of modern life, with its intoxicating highs and devastating lows.