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Dec 16, 2009

Audrey rated it:

Perhaps it is merely a reflection of my feebleness as a reader that I assume the basic conceit of any first person novel is for the author to be the narrator, more or less. In my defense, this book is dedicated to Allende's mother. And the story itself is about a girl who loses her mother and loves her mother deeply and has all kinds of wooooonderful adventures, only to discover writing and have even more maaaaaaagical adventures, and become highly successful, and be pursued by a general and als More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 28, 2010

Josie rated it:

I found that reading this book was a bit like attending a storytellers' cocktail party, at which the hostess (the author) has got drunk and decided to rapidly parade every unusual and eccentric character she could possibly imagine before the gathering, in order to impress her friends.

A host of unusual tales tumble out of this book, like so many magpie-gathered jewels that had been crammed into a box. Eva Luna hits us with one bizzare scenario after another, in rapid succession. Whi More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Zoë rated it:

This is the first book by Isabel Allende that I've read and I can totally see myself getting addicted to her writing...That, and my mother has sent me about 10 of her books to read here in Malaysia. But I stayed up all night last night just to finish the last half of the book, and that usually means that I really like it. The story is about two people who fall in love, but the story is about thier lives before they meet. The story is also about the social and political situation in the annoy More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Caroline rated it:

While this book was, at times, powerfully written and while I didn't have as much of an aversion to the "mystical realism" (Janaki's categorization) bit as I thought I would, I also didn't feel all that moved by the story. I identified with the characters, especially early on, but the obsession with pinning down the kind of falling in love they were all doing was kind of annoying- the exaggerated romp in the sheets with a cherubic pair of female cousins who smelled like cloves, lemon, More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 12, 2009

Chandra rated it:

It's hard for me to put into words what I enjoyed so much about this novel. It's another Allende that I've read and enjoyed more than once. It's so detailed and absorbing that it always feels like I'm reading it for the first time. Through a unique dual narrative Allende chronicles the lives of Eva Luna and Rolf Carl. If you enjoy this don't miss the companion short story collection Stories of Eva Luna. More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 18, 2010

Isairon rated it:

Sono strani questi romanzi. Mi lasciano un senso di smarrimento a fine lettura. Un bel racconto. Parla d’amore, lotta, miseria, abbandono, amicizia, solidarietà. Ma, c’è questo”ma” che non riesco a definire.
Eva è un personaggio forte. Già alla nascita si porta con sé la tara della miseria. Combatterà questo suo destino attraverso il lavoro, duro ma onesto. Con la curiosità di apprendere e capire ciò che ha intorno. Questa vita difficile e violenta richiede un contrappeso che la alleggerisca, all More...

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Aug 30, 2011

Caitlin rated it:

This was a very interesting book. Eva Luna explains her childhood through telling stories. She is narrating the events of her life and her eventual lover's, Rolf Carle. Eva Luna is also a story teller to the characters in the book. An orphan at a young age she bounces from benefactor to benefactor charming and escaping through her stories. There are only a couple of actual stories in the book but it is referenced a lot. It was a nice juxtaposition that the way she tells her story is like a fairy More...

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Aug 28, 2011

Zoe rated it:

A wild ride of a book with characters I couldn't resist. The story begins with Consuelo, Eva's mother, an orphan farmed out for work, who eventually ends up working in the home of strange little man, the inventor of embalming fluid (I know, but read on!). When the generous Consuelo makes love to a dying man, cures him and conceives, Eva's adventure begins. Like her mother, Eva is orphaned and passed from hand to hand - some gentle and loving, some harsh, some committed to her care, others More...

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Jan 12, 2010

Jennifer rated it:

It is hard for me to recapture the innocence I once had with books, where the words were so real it was like being in a super reality. Age, a better understanding of the world, and my new education to psychotherapy has made literature more understandable and a little less mystical. But Allende gets me pretty close. The psychological lense of me understands Eva Luna's storytelling as therapeutic tool, her retelling of a traumatic past with newly imagined happiness makes the present palatable a More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Aug 08, 2007

Octavio rated it:

Awesome Book but don't forget to take your Ritalin before reading this book, if you have a hard time keeping up with too many characters in a Plot, you will need to OD on Ritalin before starting this book, trust me you will need it! This will be a great movie someday, the characters are rich, but it woulf have been better if some of the smaller characters, someday get their own book, here is a suggestion Ms. Allende!

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 22, 2011

Sue rated it:

I read this in high school and loved it, and have referred to it as one of my favorite books for years. I finally reread it again. I'd forgotten most of the plot and characters, but most of it came back to me as I read. What didn't come back was the feeling that it was one of the greatest books ever written. I wonder if it struck me because I just hadn't read that much literary fiction yet. At any rate, it's a good book, probably worth three and a half stars, but I'll give it four to balance out More...

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Oct 15, 2011

Patrick rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 26, 2011

Fahad rated it:

حكايات إيفالونا

هذه المجموعة القصصية من كتابات ايزابيل الليندي الأولى، ويبدو أن هذه التجربة المبكرة والحمد لله دفعت ايزابيل بعيدا ً عن كتابة القصص القصيرة، فهو فن لا تجيده، فلذا تبدو مجموعتها هذه مهلهلة، وذات حكايات طويلة احتاجت ايزابيل إلى اختصارها لتحشرها في ثوب قصة قصيرة – يدلل على هذا أنها عادت لتستخدم بعض هذه الحكايات في رواياتها التالية، كما أنها سطت على شخصيات وأبرزها المهاجر اللبناني رياض الحلبي -، اللافت في المجموعة هو أنها تدور حول المرأة أو الأنثى بجميع أشكالها، من الأم More...

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Jul 07, 2010

Lexi rated it:

Eva Luna is written gorgeously and the stories are delightful, but if you're not into that whole romantic-lyricism-magical-realism scene, don't read this book. The plot wasn't so bad as it was confusing and scattered. I enjoyed the anecdotes and details of Eva Luna's life, but that was all the book seemed to be comprised of. Eva Luna's story-telling abilities was supposedly the point of the novel, but it was more about the strange incidents and events in her life than it was the stories she wove More...

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Feb 19, 2011

Diane rated it:

I like this book for a lot of reasons. I love the way she has structured the novel. Each chapter goes back and forth between the two main characters: Rolf and Eva. One chapter is about Eva and then the next chapter is about Rolf and we get to see how their separate lives come together and what happens when they meet.

I also really like the story telling aspect of the novel. Eva survives on the streets by her ability to tell a good story. I like to think of Allende in this way, someone w More...

2 comments like

Dec 13, 2011

OzSo rated it:

tsé-tsé... lo retomé varias páginas anterior a donde lo había dejado y a ratos sentía que la narración se me quería escapar, me parecía leer la saga de twilight pero sin el melodrama y con sazón latinoamericano y su realismo mágico.

es una lectura sencilla, con buena descripción visual y poca introspección de los personajes (al menos no es cargado 'psíquicamente' como los de coetzee o lessing) sin embargo el capítulo nueve me cayó bastante personal y me vendí rapidito... goodreads ap More...

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Mar 28, 2010

Katherine rated it:

The plot of this book was so slow to come about. I was really disappointed in how slow the purpose of the book moved, but really enjoyed the poetic narration. This book was vivid and very inciting to the senses, but lacked in substantial plot until the very end. I was a love story and a political piece, but neither were apparent at all until the last 80 pages or so. In our book club, we talked about how each character didn't really have much depth. The character was what their personality flaws More...

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Feb 03, 2012

ميّ أحمد rated it:

هذه الرواية هي الرواية الثالثة التي كتبتها الروائية العظيمة إيزابيل وقد اختلف أسلوب إيزابيل في هذه الرواية عن رائعتها التاريخية أنيس حبيبة روحي حيث تشعر أنها أكثر نضجا في الأخيرة
ربما لأن إيفا كانت من بواكير الروايات التي كتبتها الليندي
الرواية تدور حول فتاة نشأت في ظروف غير طبيعية
عاشت كخادمة تتنقل من بيت لآخر منذ صغرها وكانت قد اكتشفت مهارة قص الحكايات لديها وهي الوسيلة التي استخدمتها للتواصل مع الآخرين بعد أن فقدت والدتها وهي طفلة ولم يعد لها أقارب سوى عرابتها التي قدمتها كخ More...

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Feb 06, 2012

Rachel rated it:

I read this for senior seminar (my senior capstone class). I LOVE Isabel Allende's writing - my favorite book by her is House of Spirits - and I think this is what kept me reading Eva Luna. Each sentence is beautifully written and means so much; her descriptions are vivid and I can truly 'feel' the characters. However, with Eva Luna I did not feel a connection to the characters, particularly the title main character, but I kept reading due to the fact I have to present the book to the class as w More...

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Mar 11, 2011

Adrienne rated it:

Set in an unnamed, South American country Eva Luna is a poetic, modern day Latina flavored version of 1001 Arabian nights. Within the novel, whilst the protagonist and other main characters are living their lives, they all encounter fantastical, unique and morally ambigous characters. What is most impressive about the novel though, is how all of those smaller, strange stories are wound together neatly at climax of the novel in a believable fashion.

The romantic triangle in the novel, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 12, 2011

Carrie rated it:

This book made me cry at one point. If a book can bring you to tears, then that's a pretty big selling point right there. Isabel Allende writes in the magical realism style, so if if you enjoy Gabriel Garcia Marquez I would recommend picking this up. Eva Luna is about the life, or the first forty years or so, of a woman named Eva Luna. She's born in the 1930s and grows up in an unnamed country in South America. The book focuses primarily on her childhood and the crazy situations she gets herself More...

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Jun 14, 2009

Ben rated it:

This is the second book I have read by Isabel Allende and it is addicting. I got this from the library when I was returning a book. Her style of writing is great and to my liking. In The House of the Spirits, the book is really detailed and engaging. It is the same with this book! The main character of this book, Eva Luna, faces many problems when she is young at age. She continues to face many conflicts as she grows up but that is what makes it more interesting. To see all of the adventures and More...

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May 09, 2010

yoli rated it:

This was truly amazing! It was wonderful to see how the stories tied together, and, although the pace was a little slow at times, I don't think I would have wanted it to go any faster because of the density and richness of Allende's text. I was able to resist the urge to skim until near the very end when the EXCITING thing(s) happened, and I had to make sure everything went well for the characters.

I wish I knew more South American history, however, as that really would have informed More...

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Dec 09, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

I seriously think this book is one of Allende's finest pieces. You are just so involved with this young woman that you'd follow her anywhere she takes you and you wouldn't ask any questions. As always, Allende shifts points of view from first to third but in this book, it is totally fine because we are also following Rolf Carle (who is, another likeable character I would follow anywhere) and his coming of age. There are many random incidents that just add more color to the story and make Eva Lun More...

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Aug 11, 2011

Aleeda rated it:

The Stories of Eva Luna lead me to this novel, and turned me on to the wonderful storytelling of Isabel Allende. I knew very little about Mrs. Allende, but much about her husband who was assasinated with the help of the US govt, seeking allies instead of democracy in Chile. Her stories speak of pain, but of overcoming tragedy, and strong women who, while beaten and bloodied, never bow. Both novels have a Dickensian bent in which many diverse characters are linked by wild and eccentric ties. More...

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Jan 11, 2011

Denise rated it:

How had I never read anything by Isabel Allende before? This was just the beginning for me, as I really loved her writing style & approach to storytelling.

She manages to make growing up in revolutionary Chile both magical and realistically intense, hinting at the realm of magical realism without hiding behind it & using it as a crutch (which I think a lot of writers of magical realism do).

This is a definitely recommendation to readers who enjoy strong female characters, S More...

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Jan 30, 2012

Anne Nikoline rated it:

Eva Luna is my very first Isabel Allende novel which turned out to be a poorly reading experience, and yet I cannot manage to get the book out of my head. I believe the plot of this is poor, however, not the writing style which I turned out to be quite pleased about. The author manage to create great pictures to the reader by using her writing's fully potential.

“She sowed in my mind the idea that reality is not only what we see on the surface; it has a magical dimension as well and, i More...

2 comments like

Dec 18, 2010

Taylor rated it:

"I was too busy to think about myself, but a yearning and restlessness began to appear in my stories that I had not known were in my heart. The school teacher Ines suggested I write them down in a notebook. So I began spending part of the night writing, and I enjoyed it so much that the hours sped by and I often got up in the morning with red eyes. But those were my best hours. I began to wonder whether anything truly existed, whether reality wasn't an unformed and gelatinous substance ony More...

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Nov 13, 2011

Chris rated it:

Isabel is one the most talented writers we've ever seen. I adore her style; it's poetical, flowery, and delicate, with tinges of darkness appropriate where overdoses of sentimentalism intoxicate the reader. Her novel Eva Luna is a political, erotic, and artistic first person account of a dreamy woman who finds herself in many bizarre situations and likes to create stories about the interesting people she meets. Apparently there's a companion book called "The Stories Of Eva Luna"; I' More...

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Jul 27, 2011

Alexis added it

Tengo la manía de llevar un libro para todos lados que voy; la fila del banco, el mecánico etc. Y tengo que admitir que andar con el libro de Eva Luna me causaba un poco de vergüenza. Y es que esta novela suele malinterpretarse por una novela completamente de amor cuando no es así. Sin temor a equivocarme yo diría que el 20% de la novela trata de temas románticos, el otro 80% se distribuye sobre temas políticos, acción, temas sociales, en fin una novela muy completa y entretenida, otra obra de More...

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