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31st out of 680 books
—
2,757 voters
Eva Luna
by
Isabel Allende (Goodreads Author),
Margaret Sayers Peden
An exotic dance that beguiles and entices... The enchanted and enchanting account of acontemporary Scheherazade, a wide-eyed Americanteller-of-tales who triumphs over harsh realitythrough the creative power of her own imagination......more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
August 1st 1989
by Bantam
(first published January 1st 1987)
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Jul 24, 2007
Audrey
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Narcissists
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
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. Whilst an amazing...more
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. Whilst an amazing...more
10 likes · like · see review
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 annoymou...more
4 likes · like · see review
It's a witty, ironic, humorous, magic and unusual story containing many unconventional characters and events. Let's remember the extravagant owner of a brothel, the transexual Mimi,the inventor of embalming fluid who keeps his beloved mummies at home, the Turkish merchant with a harelip and his wife who has a lot of valuable jewellery but keeps it buried in the garden stealing only short glimpses on them while reburying them at a new place, the lunatic and cruel teacher who likes to stare at nak...more
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, vanilla, b...more
1 like · like · see review
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.
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
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
I loved this quirky book. I love House of Spirits and have taught it a number of times. However, I found Daughter of Fortune slihtly disppointing in comparison - the author seemed somehow Americanised and I still haven't been able to finish Paula - as a mother I found it too scary a subject. But I craved the experience of entering into the world of Allende's Latin America. So I was delighted to find this book in a charity shop! I have mixed feelings about early magical realism novels as I find t...more
EVA LUNA is the story of an impoverished, illegitimate servant girl, orphaned at age six, illiterate in her formative years for lack of formal education, who simply loves to tell stories and becomes a TV scriptwriter. She is mentored by the evasive ghost of her mother, an opportunistic godmother, a quirky woman who sleeps in a coffin and a confused female transvestite dressed as a woman. The time span is roughly three decades that include the Vietnam War, jet planes, soap operas and the United S...more
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
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 droppi...more
Isabel Allende must have had so much fun with this. Writing in the magical-realism genre, she is able to lampoon the governments of many nations, the revolutionary movement, the literature of South America, the television soap opera and... her fellow writers. I can see her smiling as she crafted this predictable ending, or should I say -- endings.
I have read much of Allende's work, and found some of it powerful --- some of it not. This book captures the reader with a trip to imaginary and improb...more
I have read much of Allende's work, and found some of it powerful --- some of it not. This book captures the reader with a trip to imaginary and improb...more
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 and...more
5 likes · like · see review
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!
If I could I would give this book a 3.5, but I don't think it was good enough to get 4 stars. I did enjoy Eva Luna, once again we see how Allende manages to weave her words together to create a tale of mystical characters, exotic locations and voluptuous sex scenes. She seems to paint everything with the hazy brush of memory, thus giving everything in her book an ethereal quality.
The plot of this book is fairly standard (guerilla army fighting for freedom) but it's quite enjoyable. One of the m...more
The plot of this book is fairly standard (guerilla army fighting for freedom) but it's quite enjoyable. One of the m...more
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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When I say this book is a tapestry, I do not mean in the cloying blah blah blah rich tapestry of life blah blah arsehole broadsheet arts reviewer kind of way. I mean it is actually like a tapestry - an pretty much static image that is none the less bright, colourful and at times exquisitely worked. There is not a story per se, more a sequence of fairly improbable events that act like the threads in the tapestry rather than distinct images depicted upon it. What the tapestry really depicts is rat...more
Jul 07, 2010
Lexi Allen
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Lovers of Allende's writing
Recommended to Lexi by:
No one
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
Feb 12, 2011
Diane Gihring
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Anyone over 14
Recommended to Diane by:
Pilar Rotella
Shelves:
latin-american-lit
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 who has bee...more
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 who has bee...more
Dec 13, 2011
Sonia
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
descanso,
biblioteca-personal
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 aparentemente...more
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 aparentemente...more
Now finished, and wow! At first it reminded me strongly of Fina Estampa by Caetano Veloso, so much so that I went looking for a song called Eva Luna which wasn't there. I read recently an exact parallel of the episode of the bald patrina in a story in Ihara Saikaku's Life of an Amorous Woman written in 17th century Japan (basis for Misoguchi's Life of Oharu for those interested), which was odd. Allende's book manages to be about many diverse things: a picaresque soap opera; the story of Latin Am...more
Feb 22, 2013
Deirdre Keating
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommended to Deirdre by:
Liz
Shelves:
book-club-reads
It would be more accurate to say I started it 3/15, and I don't think it is a story meant to be read so quickly. But for several reasons I found myself unable to open a book for most of March. That spell is over, alleluia, and I did enjoy Allende's novel, though not as much as House of Spirits. Parts of it reminded me of my favorite Isak Dinesen stories. There were frustrating moments of straight narrative---in which there was much telling and very little showing. I imagine it read much differen...more
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 كخادمة لإحدى العائلا...more
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 كخادمة لإحدى العائلا...more
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
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, though not...more
The romantic triangle in the novel, though not...more
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
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
This book is a solid read- I'd say interesting, but not outstanding. The usual odd touches of magical realism is present, and as usual they don't seem to effect the storyline much- perhaps they are there just to add a touch of color? (Example: she sees and sometimes talks to ghosts of people she knows, but nothing ever comes of this.)
There is a follow-up book of short stories (unsurprisingly called "The Stories of Eva Luna") which I am going to read next- in it the fictional main character is t...more
There is a follow-up book of short stories (unsurprisingly called "The Stories of Eva Luna") which I am going to read next- in it the fictional main character is t...more
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 and enriched...more
I wish I knew more South American history, however, as that really would have informed and enriched...more
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Isabel Allende Llona is a Chilean-American novelist. Allende, who writes in the "magic realism" tradition, is considered one of the first successful women novelists in Latin America. She has written novels based in part on her own experiences, often focusing on the experiences of women, weaving myth and realism together. She has lectured and done extensive book tours and has taught literature at s...more
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“There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them,' my mother explained shortly before she left me. 'If you can remember me, I will be with you always.”
—
259 people liked it
“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, if we so desire, it is legitimate to enhance it and color it to make our journey through life less trying.”
—
39 people liked it
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Jan 07, 2011 02:27pm