- Rating: 4/5
Key takeaways
- Truly an epic novel with several generations of the Trueba family shown. It took me a while to understand that the first-person voice was always Esteban Trueba and didn’t change over time.
- One of the great things was how the magical aspects were deeply ingrained in the everyday stuff and quite mundane at times. Moving an objects, conversing with spirits was not depicted as hair-raising or sensational, but just something that happened.
- It takes place in Chile leading up to the Pinochet coup in 1973.
- In the middle to later parts of the book there are a lot of political references, communism vs old conservative views etc.
Nivea, Clara, Blanca, Alba. Each woman attempted to be as independent as her era allowed, yet falling for the society mores expected of an upper crust Chilean family.