The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende

Advantages: Intensely passionate epic story
Disadvantages: It had to end :(

...a 70 year period of the upper class del Valle and Trueba families in the 20th century. Although it never mentions actual dates throughout, this helps sustain the cocoon of the the created situation. There is much speculation where the novel is set but again Allende does not actually name the country, only that it is South America. This is very much the style of the book, it is a wonderful cocoon of a families experiences within the changing economic ...
...It is told in the third person narrative from the perspective of found family diaries, with occasional switches to first person narrative to the most central character in the book the patriachal Esteban Trueba. This may sound strange but it is seamless and works very well, it allows every character to come fully to life. There are many varied characters who come and go throughout the story besides the main family ones and they are all given depth ... Read review

Advantages: colour, passion
Disadvantages:

...It is completely captivating and the film absolutely does not do it justice so don't watch it even if it has got Antonio Banderas in it (ladies). My favourite moment is when the heroine receives her wedding present . . . such a heartwrenching depiction of the hopeless gulf between women and how men think they understand them, especially macho men. ... Read review

Advantages: Vibrant, magical, compelling
Disadvantages: None!

I first read The House of the Spirits as a teenager and have been fascinated by South American literature and culture ever since. Allende's prose is accessible to most readers but is also incredibly rich, vibrant, colourful, bursting with metaphor and hidden meaning. The book is simultaneously magical, vibrant, disturbing and uplifting, sometimes erotic, sometimes harrowing but always compelling. The novel is principally a family saga, spanning ...
...emotions of individual members of the family to the horrors and brutality of life under the Pinocet dictatorship from 1973. Allende employs the traditional magical realist form of Latin America fiction however, what makes her work different is that she adapts the technique - that has tended to concentrate on events in the male bloodline - to the female characters of her story. The book is particularly significant because Allende blends the magical ... Read review

Advantages: All
Disadvantages: None

...exception is I haven't forgotten the argument, it's not like other books that 2 months later you don't remember anything about it. It's shocking, and you can live a society much different than this of ours. I started to consider different viewpoints. Shocking is also the way the main character can foretell what is about to come and, though she knows it, she follows the marked path for her, never leaving it. Another interesting fact is the different ... Read review

Advantages: full of emotions and suspense
Disadvantages: none

...from a friend and at the same time the first Allende I have read. It really got me hocked and I have since read "Paula" and a couple of other books. Of course I have also seen the film that goes with the book, but which film can ever be better than the written word? Allende takes you into a different world and time that do no longer exist. It is the story of a rich South-American family and the problems they encounter. The two daughters, one that ... Read review