For me, this was an impressive introduction to Allende’s flamboyant storytelling ability. For those who enjoy a colorful tale blended with a healthy dose of magical realism, this is a book to savor. ( )

Author: Isabel Allende, trans. by Margaret Sayers Peden
Review: April 09, 2009
Edition: 1989 printing (0-553-28058-9)
Pages: 307
Overall Rating: 4/5 [Good]
Synopsis: The fictitious autobiography of Eva Luna, a young woman who grows up in South America during a time of turmoil, trying to make sense of her experiences as she moves among classes, affiliations, and lovers.
Strengths: Use of symbolism, consistent character behavior, strong and descriptive writing.
Weaknesses: Grammatical inconsistency, sometimes rambling.
Further Review: This book touches on many themes and issues, and Eva Luna's transient life style lends well to exploring the political strife, class struggles, sexuality and gender roles, and racism present in South America in the mid 1900s...yet despite presenting the problems surrounding all of these themes, Allende's writing never becomes heavy-handed or preachy; Eva simply moves through her life, making observations, reacting humanly, without being an ideologue or becoming full of anger. Instead, Allende takes these issues and presents them more on an individual level rather than in broad, general terms. Eva Luna's friendships with various characters allow her to encounter different view points. The characters who populate Eva Luna's life are interesting and varied, with habits and dreams of their own, and each one is interesting and full of depth. The tone of the book is smooth and descriptive; it's easy to picture the jungles and the cities and towns that make up the scenery and the people who live there.

The grammar, however, does sometimes stand out negatively: tenses seem out of place; present will be used in one line and then past in another, even if the same event is still being handled. This may be a translation thing---I'm not sure. ( )

Een Zuid-Amerikaanse vrouw, die is geboren aan de zelfkant van de maatschappij, moet zich een weg zoeken in de jungle van de samenleving. ( )

Mijn favoriet van Allende, een heerlijke droomwereld en zo mooi beschreven ( )

This was my introduction to Allende - I haven't read The House of the Spirits, which seems to be the most famous of her works. I'll spare you the agony of reading the whole paragraph and just say from starters that I loved the book. The novel follows Eva and Rolf's journey from childhood to adulthood in alternating chapters: one for the girl, one for the boy. It is implied from the beginning that circumstances will bring these two together, though at first it is difficult to see how that might happen, as they lead very different lives in different corners of the world. Allende is a brilliant storyteller, managing to blend myth, history, politics and magical realism into her novel seemingly effortlessly. I'm not sure if the novel could be called historical fiction (?) but the tumultuous political background of Latin America is certainly used creatively by the author to influence the lives of her characters. (Wikipedia informs me that "while the country's political history, traced through several decades of the mid-20th century, bears many similarities to Chile -the author's original nationality- the geography and social context of the story depict a society more similar to Venezuela.") The story does not get boring for a second and you will find yourself racing through chapters in anticipation of Eva and Rolf's foreshadowed encounter. There is only one chapter that I disliked in the book, which seemed to me just wrong - but still, this one works its way into my "recommended reads" category. ( )