Reviews with content warning for Animal death - La casa de los espíritus

I appreciate the author's dedication and talent and will probably try some of her other works, but this one was just not really for me. I skimmed the last 3 or 4 chapters, but didn't really properly read them because I figured if I wasn't engaged with and invested in the characters by the climax of the story I never would be. I haven't read much magical realism, but turns out I prefer my books more on the magical side, less on the realism. I definitely can see where she was inspired by Marquez' A Hundred Years of Solitude, but I found the family in this book harder to read about.

The male lead, Esteban, is revealed to be a /bad/ man within the first 100 pages and a shallow summary of this book is him doing /bad/ things for almost 500 pages while everyone else just kind of shrugs and lets him get away with it. And I understand that it's meant to be a broad overarching story about him digging his own grave, but even in the climax, it's not Esteban who truly faces the consequences of his actions, but his poor granddaughter, Alba. His taking what happens to her so personally is just another way he assumes ownership of every single other character in the novel, particularly the female ones. They're reduced to hollow, often infantilized shells of people who float along seemingly indifferent to all the bad things he's done, silently bearing whatever punishment he chooses to award. I struggle to real stories where people could leave their abusive relatives and decaying homes but choose not to for reasons that are never really explained, and this story falls pretty solidly into those margins.

Content Warnings

wannieh's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional hopeful lighthearted mysterious reflective sad

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

kmaller's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Through the framework of a single family's story, Allende connects a thread directly from imperialism, patriarchal violence, and capitalism to fascism, culminating in the coup d'etat of Chile in 1973. It was neat to realize that The Poet was indeed Pablo Neruda, that The Candidate was Salvador Allende (with his final speech before his death written verbatim into the narrative), that the dictator has an "august mustache."
Throughout the text, Allende presentsaa canny understanding of the corruption of the capitalist class and of the ways in which legitimately elected socialist governments are undermined (creating false scarcity, etc). The question of non-violent resistance is repeatedly raised, with varied answers which I respect.
I was surprised by the seeming nihilism of the epilogue compared to the tone of the rest of the book, but it also seems to reinforce one of the underlying threads of the book, that individual rage is ineffective without collective action.

Content Warnings

emilyclairem's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

joneva's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

kimberlybetweenstanzas's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Content Warnings

thelibraryofalexandra's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Content Warnings

mischka's review against another edition

Go to review page

Ich habe es bis zur letzten Generation gelesen, weil es trotz der ganzen Gewalt (siehe content warnings), die darin vorkommt, ein fantastisches Buch ist. Irgendwann habe ich es nur nicht mehr ausgehalten, was für schreckliche Dinge die ganze Zeit passieren... vor allen Dingen den Frauen.

Content Warnings

More...