"The sky is neither high nor low. It's over us and under us at the same time" (105).

I have always loved writers who have a distinctly unique style. Ones that make you think outside the box and make you feel absorbed into the story. Carlos Fuentes is definitely one of those authors. Although I have never read any of his other stories, I get the innate feeling that he has a knack for pushing the limits of reality.

In Aura, we, as the reader, are forcibly placed into the position of Felipe Montero, we go through everything he goes through, putting us right in the story line. There is no safe buffer zone between the reader and what is happening. There is no room to pull yourself away from the madness of this story. From the very beginning Fuentes pulls you in by saying, "You're reading the advertisement: an offer like this isn't made everyday. You read it and reread it" (3). I love that there is no place to hide in this story. Just like Felipe Montero is trapped within the Consuela's house, the reader is trapped within the story.

When I first finished reading the story, I sat there thinking over what it is that I had just read. I went back over some of the passages from the book trying to make sense of it all in my head. When I finally came to the conclusion that Aura and Consuela were one in the same and that Felipe Montero had some kind of connection with General Llorente it all came full circle for me. Then, I began to think that maybe the reason Fuentes puts the reader right in the story is more than just his style of writing. Maybe in fact, the reader is a part of this crazy world that Felipe has been caught up in as well. I began to think that maybe in order for the entire story to survive it needs the to reader to be an active part of it. Like Consuela created Aura to survive, so has Fuentes created the reader and Felipe to keep this entire cycle in place. At the very end of the story, Aura changes back into the old woman, but Felipe stays the same. This tells me that unlike Aura who is physically connected with Consuela, Felipe is his own entity, playing a role that needs to be filled in order for this story to survive. But just like Felipe, the reader is always their own separate entity, yet they are still playing just as intricate a role in helping these characters survive within the story.