rlaurene 's review for:

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

5.0

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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This is a remarkable book. It is sprawling yet intimate, magical yet down to earth, long yet pacey. Allende is a master at characters, all with very particular flaws (with perhaps the exception of Alba) and very believable and somehow, quite loveable. The patriarch is an angry figure who commits heinous crimes for his passions; yet he still somehow engenders sympathy as a wizened old man who just wants to see to the safety of his granddaughter. 

Like many South American books, it is couched in magical realism, in an unspecified country. Yet Allende goes into the heart of what led to Chile to its disastrous path to authoritarianism, what was dark at the core of the country. That cycles of violence must be broken.

I'm unsure if this translation differs from any other editions, but it was very good, and particularly engaging