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A review by danielle_w
In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
5.0
This was my first foray into magical realism. Knowing it comes from a rich Latin American history, I intended this year to read books in genres that are usually skirted by in Western literature. And let me tell ya, Western lit is missing out on the treat that is magical realism.
The inciting incident is one moment in time in which three lives are suddenly connected, but most of the book is actually about each person's past. One woman who grew up in a poor village in Gautemala, one American who lived in Brazil for a while, and one woman who lived in upperclass Chile at the turn of the revolution. I gained such an appreciation for and interest in South America in this book and can't wait to get my hands on more magical realism. Though it wasn't the point of the book, reading about a destitute, endangered teenage girl illegally crossing the border did give me pause over the humanity of the illegal immigrant situation in the States- probably because Allende truly narrated it in passing as a reality that she is aware of as a South American woman.
It is incredibly dramatic (unbelievable things happen) but somehow it's not cliche or overdone.
My one sadness was that every single man in this story had an affair- I counted five. Allende casually mentions flings and it grieved me to think that some people's lives are so saturated with this sort of view that it's normalized.
Trigger warning for this book: brief mention of gang rape but not described (probably a pretty accurate representation of the dangers in a destitute Guatemalan village).
The inciting incident is one moment in time in which three lives are suddenly connected, but most of the book is actually about each person's past. One woman who grew up in a poor village in Gautemala, one American who lived in Brazil for a while, and one woman who lived in upperclass Chile at the turn of the revolution. I gained such an appreciation for and interest in South America in this book and can't wait to get my hands on more magical realism. Though it wasn't the point of the book, reading about a destitute, endangered teenage girl illegally crossing the border did give me pause over the humanity of the illegal immigrant situation in the States- probably because Allende truly narrated it in passing as a reality that she is aware of as a South American woman.
It is incredibly dramatic (unbelievable things happen) but somehow it's not cliche or overdone.
My one sadness was that every single man in this story had an affair- I counted five. Allende casually mentions flings and it grieved me to think that some people's lives are so saturated with this sort of view that it's normalized.
Trigger warning for this book: brief mention of gang rape but not described (probably a pretty accurate representation of the dangers in a destitute Guatemalan village).