Girl Trouble: The True Saga of Superstar Gloria Trevi and the Teenage Sex Cult That Stunned the World

Con un estilo narrativo magnífico, un ritmo que no decae ni un segundo y una historia pasmosa, el autor construye un libro que resulta el perfecto retrato de una secta: algunos momentos su lectura resulta hasta agobiante, pero el lector se encontrará incapaz de dejarlo, tan brillantemente escrito está, y tal es su fuerza. Un libro de lectura imprescindible.

El escandalo trevi-andrade consta de varios testimonios y versiones, muchas de ellas contradictorias, este libro es un buen compendio de todas ellas. Reseñar solamente que el autor obvia algunos datos con el fin de victimizar mas si cabe a las niñas y eximir de su parte de culpa a los ambiciosos padres de algunas de ellas...

i loved this book, and i think any reader who isn't blown away by it must be used to airport newsstand trash, not real journalism. i was about to write a rave review myself, but found this one from the herald to be dead on the money: "Despite its sensationalist title, Girl Trouble is no hastily assembled fallen-superstar exposé, and McDougall is no mere gossip-rag hack. Using the "Siempre en Domingo" performance as his launching point, McDougall - who has written for The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and the Associated Press - delves deeply and thoroughly into the bizarre irony that would become Gloria Trevi's life and career. In the process he seeks - and largely provides - answers and understanding rather than simple exploitation of this stranger-than-fiction tale. Two very detailed stories emerge from Girl Trouble; the first of which is the story of Trevi herself and her meteoric rise to become Mexico's Madonna. Singing songs that championed teen sexual liberation and bashed traditional macho attitudes, all the while sporting a carefree thrift-store chic and a metaphorically untamed mane of hair, Trevi was adored by young audiences - especially young female audiences. She even won over members of Mexico's intellectual community. Social critic Carlos Monsivaís and author Elena Poniatowska wrote about her in glowing praise, and none other than Zapatista guerilla leader Subcomandante Marcos admitted to being a fan. But at the same time that she was loudly and proudly extolling sexual liberation, freedom and girl power, Trevi herself seemed to be living an entirely monkish existence. She was never spotted out and about town, she seemed to have few friends, and she never dated. When she stepped on stage or when a television camera was turned on her, she burst into her irreverent, unconstrained persona. But when the spotlight was turned off, she immediately turned sulky and introverted. There was a good explanation for the strange dichotomy in Trevi's personality, however. She, along with a rotating cast of more than a dozen other young women and girls, had become part of a secret brainwashing sex cult cultivated by producer/manager Sergio Andrade, a quintessential macho control artist. Here the second and larger story takes over Girl Trouble as McDougall painstakingly reconstructs not only the lurid details of the Andrade cult's workings, but also the psychology that allowed it to take shape in the first place. Sergio Andrade, while blessed with at least some knack for penning hum-able pop tunes, is repeatedly characterized in the book as fat, ugly, boorish, slovenly, sullen, and essentially devoid of any sort of endearing personality trait. Yet somehow he managed to convince a rotating cast of young teenage girls - as well as women's lib champion Glori Trevi herself - to submit to beatings, rape, starvation and ritual humiliation. And they bore it all while remaining completely loyal, obedient, and most importantly, silent. As McDougal

"That's where Christopher McDougall, who covered Trevi's story for The New York Times, picks up. Pretending to be an old music-industry pal of Andrade's, McDougall got into the famously fearsome Brazilian Papuda Correctional Facility to interview him. (McDougall speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese.) He also finagled his way into Gloria's cell, where she promised him the truth: "I am who I tell you I am." In unraveling the mystery, McDougall also got close to Aline Hernandez, who was a skinny 13-year-old when Gloria plucked her from a crowd for admission to the school. Aline alleged that Sergio made her strip for her "audition," later raped her, forced her into group sex, beat her with electrical cords and, when she was 15, married her. (She was the fourth Mrs. Sergio Andrade, and not the youngest.) So what's the weirdest thing about this story? Too close to call. "Girl Trouble" was plucked from the headlines, but has a longer shelf life ahead of it - for one thing, Trevi's comeback album just went platinum. Beyond that, McDougall gives the book a powerful resonance by finding the larger cultural context of this singularly bizarre tale."

This is one of the most sensational true-crime books I have ever read, and one reason I loved it is because it's not sensationalized. Christopher McDougall makes Gloria Trevi appear so true to life, and then peels back the layers of her on-stage persona to reveal the troubled, scary, cunning woman beneath. His characterization of the arch mastermind, Sergio Andrade, is amazing: you can't believe that a guy like that could rise to such power and remain free for so long, yet McDougall does a masterful job of showing exactly how Andrade DID get away with his secret girl-group sex cult for so long. If you're looking for a window into the dark corners of show business, sexual perversion or the perversions of wealth and power, this is it.