A review by emergencily
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

3.75

Narrated in omniscient first person by the titular protagonist, Eva Luna, as she recounts the story of her life in an unnamed semi-fictional South American country in the early 20th century. The story starts with her mother Consuelo's tumultuous childhood, following Eva Luna's birth and coming of age. She flits from employer to employer as a young serving girl, finds and loses members of a found family, gets caught up in the political turmoil of her country's military coups and attempts at communist revolution, finds love in father figures (ew) and lost childhood friends, and eventually makes her way in the world as a famed writer. 

I thought the first half of the novel, about Eva's mother's life and Eva's childhood and adolescence, was stronger than the second half when Eva is an adult. The sense of magic and fantasy in her world eventually disappears and the book starts to revolve around her stumbling into conveniently placed political subplots that wrap up neatly, and romances that play her as a waiting damsel. Her character in adulthood loses the rebellious spirit and chaos she had as a child. I wish the book had done more with the idea of magic in her powers of storytelling and how it impacts her world. I also wish more had been done with the politics beyond it just existing in the background setting. Eva's character is largely apolitical until it suits whichever man she's in love with, which seems a shame.

I wanted to fall in love with this as much as I did with "The House of the Spirits" (one of my all-time favourites), but I didn't. Nevertheless, Allende's writing style is beautiful and her descriptions of the world really make it seem magical and otherworldly.