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I'll start by saying I have read everything Isabel Allende has wrote and I'm a big, big fan. Her novels are well written, her characters are well defined and interesting, the plot has always kept me on my toes.
"Ripper", on the other hand, was a huge, huge disappointment. It's not that it's a whole different style than Allende's other novels. I was actually pretty excited to see her extend to other areas and read something that's not a historical story. Buf after finishing "Ripper", I'm convinced she should have stuck to what she does best.
This book is supposed to be a detective story, a mystery novel with a touch of thriller. However, it's nothing of the sorts. Allende spends more than half the book describing her characters, and rushes to get the actual story done in the last 50-or so pages. So, in actuality, nothing of interest happens until the end of the novel.
The story itself is predictive and boring. If you follow closely the clues she leaves (too many and not well dissimulated), you figure out who the killer is way before Indiana is actually kidnapped. Allende spent way too much time describing background characters in detail, although they don't bring anything to the story. Probably to make the reader search for clues and try to guess who the murderer is, but in reality all those pages are really, really boring. And, above all, the characters are not people you can relate too.
There are a lot of holes in the plot, something else that is new to Allende's work, as well as details that are utterly unnecessary and not believable, like Indiana's reason for getting back together with Keller.
It's a light read, a beach book, if you will, but so far from what Allende has written to date that I cannot consider it in any way successful. Maybe if I didn't have anything to compare it to, I would have enjoyed it more, but for a writer of her status, this book is a complete disappointment.
"Ripper", on the other hand, was a huge, huge disappointment. It's not that it's a whole different style than Allende's other novels. I was actually pretty excited to see her extend to other areas and read something that's not a historical story. Buf after finishing "Ripper", I'm convinced she should have stuck to what she does best.
This book is supposed to be a detective story, a mystery novel with a touch of thriller. However, it's nothing of the sorts. Allende spends more than half the book describing her characters, and rushes to get the actual story done in the last 50-or so pages. So, in actuality, nothing of interest happens until the end of the novel.
The story itself is predictive and boring. If you follow closely the clues she leaves (too many and not well dissimulated), you figure out who the killer is way before Indiana is actually kidnapped. Allende spent way too much time describing background characters in detail, although they don't bring anything to the story. Probably to make the reader search for clues and try to guess who the murderer is, but in reality all those pages are really, really boring. And, above all, the characters are not people you can relate too.
There are a lot of holes in the plot, something else that is new to Allende's work, as well as details that are utterly unnecessary and not believable, like Indiana's reason for getting back together with Keller.
It's a light read, a beach book, if you will, but so far from what Allende has written to date that I cannot consider it in any way successful. Maybe if I didn't have anything to compare it to, I would have enjoyed it more, but for a writer of her status, this book is a complete disappointment.