Summary: Allende Rocks
Rating: 5
I love Allende's characters and her writing. Zorro was my first read of hers and I have purchased everything. I get very involved in the story and characters. Her trilogy for kids is in my library and is checked out all of the time. Good writing is good writing.


Summary: This is the ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION
Rating: 3
Do not be fooled by the first sentence being shown in Spanish above (as I was). This is the English language version of Eva Luna, and Amazon mistakenly put the first sentence of the Spanish version by the title. I know this is not a review of the book, but I would like to prevent someone else from making the mistake I did and ending up paying almost the full price of the book in shipping charges to try to return it and get the correct version.


Summary: Interesting Novel
Rating: 5
This novel is a romantic one. The romance starts nearly at the end of the book, but it's a very good novel. It will make you laugh and make you amazed!!! Although, it's magic realism, you should try keep an open mind. It's a different book that's all. But you'll love it!!!


Summary: Eva Luna
Rating: 3
I have to remember that as much as I like the concept of "magical realism" I, for the most part, don't like the genre. I can think of two books I have actually enjoyed: Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade and The Yellow Sofa by Eca De Queiros. Most of the time the genre leaves me cold, confused and somewhat bored. There are often too many tangents and too much extraneous detail: Eva Luna has these problems.
I wanted to read Eva Luna after having enjoyed Daughter of Fortune back in 2003 and having had a moderate enjoyment of Zorro in 2005, although I had felt the author hadn't really understood the character. While there are some beautifully written passages in Eva Luna they didn't flow together to create a feeling of a coherent story or a plot that was actually going somewhere. Nor, though, did it feel like it was written strictly as a mood piece. Poor Eva seemed to be forced to tread water in the middle of all that flowing prose, bobbing her head up whenever the story required her to be present in a scene.

Eva Luna starts as a memoir of an illegitimate daughter of a maid and an indian. While Eva Luna continues to narrate the story of her life, she is but a passive witness to a disparate group of odd balls who end up becoming political revolutionaries. Their stories are so much more interesting than Luna's. Her constant rambling drags down the story and her role in all of this beyond reporter and maybe lover isn't clear.


Summary: Magical book from a magical author
Rating: 5
Isabel Allende has yet to disappoint me. Her books are delightful. I was introduced to her work through "Daughter of Fortune" and I've been hooked ever since. After having read almost everything Allende has published, Eva Luna remains one of my favorites. The characters and story are larger than life, but still somehow relatable. Follow this one up with "The Stories of Eva Luna".

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