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challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I’m a huge fan of this author’s writing and to me, there’s really nothing she can’t write. I thought this book was an absolutely gorgeous tale of love, friendship, family, responsibility and the pain and brokenness brought about by brutal historical incidents. The premise of this is that Irina goes to work at a retirement home where she meets Alma Belasco and becomes embroiled in their storied family history that spans Alma’s family’s experience as Jewish people in Poland at the start of World War 2, her fostering by her American Aunt and Uncle, and her love for her cousin-husband, Nathaniel Belasco, her lifelong romance with Japanese-American, Ichimei Fukuda. Meanwhile, as Irina joins forces with Alma’s grandson, Seth, to reconstruct the Belasco family history, she is dealing with family demons of her own as she comes to terms with her own past and navigates her journey to peace and a healing she doubts is possible for her.
This is a historical novel. To liken it to a popular book, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” is very much in this style (being two years younger than this book). It is historical fiction built around an older woman going back in time to talk about her life and her great loves. I’ve seen this tagged as a romance novel. It is not. It is more an epic love story, beautifully written, gorgeously composed as you can expect from Isabel Allende.
For me, when it comes to books that discuss race, I’m of two minds- in one sense, I believe that any author should be able to write whatever stories fit their vision, and if those stories are diverse, so much the better. But I also am cognizant of the fact that an author’s privilege and personal experience can colour how they tell a story. As I read and enjoyed this, as lovely as it was, I couldn’t help but wonder how this would be perceived by audiences who were part of the affected groups referenced in this novel- how would Jewish people feel or Japanese people especially those whose families had experienced incarceration. It’s the sort of thing that makes you want to read reviews from those audiences. But at the same time, you recognize that a review from one own voices reviewer is not the same as a representation of all the possible viewpoints about the book. For me, as fiction, that was based on verifiable history, I loved it.
If there are any down sides for me, I think it was Irina’s plot. The challenge there was that it felt a little thrown in on the side and forgotten for large swathes of the book. I felt like her story was so deep and heavy that it needed more pages and a little more gravity. I liked Irina and Seth’s relationship in the book but I also see how it could be said to be problematic. I feel like there was a hint of casual racism in this, not terrible and very reflective of 1930s and 1940s America but still as someone who would have been subject to racism in those times, it’s a little difficult to read. Another issue I had with this is the fact that there were quite a few historical info dumps in this. At several points in the book, dropping the thread of the story, the author would insert a bunch of history from a relevant period- not from the perspective of any of the characters, just like a commentary mid-prose. I didn’t mind because the information was relevant and provided historical context, but it felt removed from the story rather than incorporated. I liked this book a lot, but I don’t think as a family saga, it was as rich as some of this author’s other works that I’ve read.
For me what worked amazingly well with this was the language, the expression of the themes of aging, life and death, family, self-awareness, love and loss. This is a poignant book that leaves you with the feeling that love is immortal and death is not the end.
This is a historical novel. To liken it to a popular book, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” is very much in this style (being two years younger than this book). It is historical fiction built around an older woman going back in time to talk about her life and her great loves. I’ve seen this tagged as a romance novel. It is not. It is more an epic love story, beautifully written, gorgeously composed as you can expect from Isabel Allende.
For me, when it comes to books that discuss race, I’m of two minds- in one sense, I believe that any author should be able to write whatever stories fit their vision, and if those stories are diverse, so much the better. But I also am cognizant of the fact that an author’s privilege and personal experience can colour how they tell a story. As I read and enjoyed this, as lovely as it was, I couldn’t help but wonder how this would be perceived by audiences who were part of the affected groups referenced in this novel- how would Jewish people feel or Japanese people especially those whose families had experienced incarceration. It’s the sort of thing that makes you want to read reviews from those audiences. But at the same time, you recognize that a review from one own voices reviewer is not the same as a representation of all the possible viewpoints about the book. For me, as fiction, that was based on verifiable history, I loved it.
If there are any down sides for me, I think it was Irina’s plot. The challenge there was that it felt a little thrown in on the side and forgotten for large swathes of the book. I felt like her story was so deep and heavy that it needed more pages and a little more gravity. I liked Irina and Seth’s relationship in the book but I also see how it could be said to be problematic. I feel like there was a hint of casual racism in this, not terrible and very reflective of 1930s and 1940s America but still as someone who would have been subject to racism in those times, it’s a little difficult to read. Another issue I had with this is the fact that there were quite a few historical info dumps in this. At several points in the book, dropping the thread of the story, the author would insert a bunch of history from a relevant period- not from the perspective of any of the characters, just like a commentary mid-prose. I didn’t mind because the information was relevant and provided historical context, but it felt removed from the story rather than incorporated. I liked this book a lot, but I don’t think as a family saga, it was as rich as some of this author’s other works that I’ve read.
For me what worked amazingly well with this was the language, the expression of the themes of aging, life and death, family, self-awareness, love and loss. This is a poignant book that leaves you with the feeling that love is immortal and death is not the end.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Dementia, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Abortion, and Death of parent