chrysemys 's review for:

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

2.0

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The characters were not especially compelling and the plot seemed to be just their mundane travels between the disasters (and lesser misfortunes) of the mid-late 20th century. Ostensibly, this book is an epic love story (it isn't exactly), but beneath that, it felt as if Allende was trying to build a sort of huge edifice of a story, almost a family saga... but it was not quite that, either. And the solution to last mystery of the book--which the reader has forgotten about by the time it arrives in the final pages--was predictable and the payoff wasn't very satisfying.