A review by notesurfer
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

Did not finish book. Stopped at 13%.

The House of the Spirits reads like a pale imitation of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Certainly this book is a lot less grotesque, but it is by no means beautiful. The prose is serviceable, but the images lack the engrossing quality of Marquez' work. The most damning omission is the lack of poetic continuity. The plot feels apathetically capricious, without meaning or anti-meaning. Reading this book feels like reading a checklist for magical realism: an endless litany of arbitrary and unexciting events.