A review by emjay24
Inés of My Soul by Isabel Allende

4.0

I like Isabelle Allende and I had no idea what this book was about before I started reading it. I was pleasantly surprised when I started, to find that it is a historical account of the founding of Chile in the 1500s. I oh-so-briefly learned about the conquistadores back in 6th grade or so, and have not learned much about any of that since. I think maybe we touched on it in high school spanish class. The whole thing was so lifelike and realistic. A lot of historical novels are kind of romantic but this was not. This is not a book that you speed through - it's pretty slow reading, but not because it's boring or bad. It's set up as a memoir by Ines, now in her 80s or 90s, who helped found chile. Naturally, while I was reading, I thought it probably was made up. When I got to the end, I found out that Ines really existed and this is, while fiction, largely based on fact. I never knew that a woman was so instrumental in founding that country and especially back then! What an amazing woman! There are a lot of sad parts - lots of cruelty, particuarly to the native americans, who they kill and enslave. I highly recommend this book!