Reviews

This was just not for me. I didn’t enjoy the writing. I didn’t like the characters. It bored me and when it didn’t I felt slightly disgusted with some of the storylines. Just not for me.

kayaelena's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

ellilavon's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

alyssaakdefusco's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

A whole journey! I absolutely love generational historical fiction like this. And I'll start backwards by saying the last several chapters absolutely FLOORED me. I was crying by the last page. The only reason I'm not giving 5 stars is that this book is loooong and it had me feeling confused by some of the character choices up until the very end! It took me a while to read. Parts of it were sluggish and a lot of really crappy stuff happens. Plus for most of the book you're bounced back and forth by a 3rd person narrator and then a 1st person narration by the main male character of the book who is a racist r*pist, so that really threw me off. But seriously, it is worth a read just to get to the end. I've never experienced that much of a turnaround with a book and so much justification for such a long and hard to read first 3/4 of a book! Phew. It's helpful to do some research about the historical context of Chile in the 1st half of the 20th century too because Allende is ultimately telling that story through the lens of this family. I didn't realize that until about half way through! My bad. Anyways, here's my favorite passage from the book that sums up what I loved so much about it and what was revealed to me at the very end:

"She was one of those stoical, practical women of our country, the kind of woman who has a child with every man who passes through her life and, on top of that, takes in other people's abandoned children, her own poor relatives, and anybody who needs a mother, sister, or an aunt; the kind of woman who's the pillar of many other lives, who raises children to grow up and leave her and lets men leave her too, without a word of reproach, because she has more pressing things to worry about. She looked like so many others I had met...I told her she had an enormous risk in rescuing me, and she smiled. It was then I understood that the days of the fascists were numbered, because they have not been able to destroy the spirit of these women."

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