A Long Petal of the Sea

At times the character arcs felt a little unrealistic or maybe overwritten? You didn’t have to work for a lot in terms of understanding the characters. Some of the movement through time felt rushed.

That said, it’s a beautiful book, which touches on important themes like the constant modern fight against fascism, class, race, how a life-long partnership can have many different phases, and the cruelty of war and anti-leftist ideology. An important book for our times.

I've just finished this book and I already feel that it will stay with me for a long time. The story takes you through several countries, wars, relationships, hardships and loves. George R.R. Martin said, "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. [...]" If we take this quote literally, A Long Petal of the Sea brought me much closer to that goal.

The book also gave me a much better understanding of the past of Spain and Chile. Allende wrote a novel, but it touches on a lot of important real history. I sometimes checked what I'd just read on Wikipedia to see if it was true and to learn more about the events described. The author did her homework so well that you get a novel and a history lesson in one. The book also portrays the sadly ever-present issue of people being forced to flee their own country. It helps the reader to see other perspectives.

If you are interested in love stories, the hardships of war, people being both good and very, very bad, this book is for you. One of the criticisms I've heard about Isabel Allende is that her writing sometimes gets in the way of the story by using too many or convoluted metaphors. At least in this book, I don't agree with that. The writing was good, flowed with the story and never took center stage. The characters and environment did the telling.

Two things bothered me a little. One was the ending, it felt rushed and the book could have been finished a few pages earlier and I think it would have left a better impression. The second is that most of the time I couldn't hear the characters saying their dialog. With a few exceptions, it felt like they were mostly there to move the plot along.

All in all, I highly recommend this book and I'll probably try another one by Isabel Allende in the future.

I deliberately did not look up what this book was about and only read it. I am glad I did that. It was wonderful to read names and event of history for it made the stories more real. I almost set aside when the relationships felt melodramatic/soapy but I am glad I stayed with it.

I loved the way this story was written. Although I honestly had a difficult time following each of the separate stories, I want to read more author. It was a good story. It was about love in a time of war.

The history that this book was based on was fascinating, but I think I would have preferred to read a straight-up history book to this work of historical fiction. The characters are all very vaguely drawn and have extremely predictable stories. The reader is always told how the characters feel instead of it being demonstrated in the text, and somehow despite all of the characters' hardships everything seems to always work out neatly for them so the stakes felt weirdly low.

This is quite a book. A long epic story with complex historical backgrounds. In a lot of ways it reminds of the style of Garcia Marquez.

Isabel Allende es una de mis autoras favoritas desde que la conocí. Este es un libro como los que ella sabe escribir, con historias de amor casi épicas, que atraviesan el tiempo, el espacio y las fronteras. Historias de amor que no siempre son de amantes y nunca vienen solas. Historias de amor a una patria, a una idea, a una pasión, a una tradición.

Un relato de inmigrantes que encuentran en América Latina la posibilidad de empezar de nuevo, descubrirse a sí mismos y formar nuevas familias, nuevas tradiciones.

Provavelmente merece 4 estrelas, mas meu coração tá apertado com esse momento pandêmico e nem td chega nele. A escrita dela é a mesma, histórias e personagens tão reais q vc os vê caminhando pelas ruas- e aqui o fundo espanhol me interessava pq meus pais saíram da Espanha fugindo desse momento pos guerra civil, embora tenham vindo pra cá e não Chile.

Not my usual style, but it was an enjoyable listen.

Libro muy entretenido que da una perspectiva nueva de la Guerra Civil Española y nos recuerda que los españoles también fuimos exiliados y refugiados en su día.
Es muy curioso ver como alguien de fuera de España describe esta guerra que tenemos (casi) todos, muy asumida en nuestro ADN de una forma diferente.

Hay perspectivas y/o datos que no comparto y creo que en cierto modo, me choca que hasta parezca una guerra romántica. Aunque también es verdad que esta forma de escribir forma parte del estilo de Allende y no sorprende tanto cuando es una historia sobre una tierra ajena. Y para ser justos, fuera de España, para otros países como USA, Rusia o UK fue visto como una guerra por la democracia e ideales sociales, en lugar de ese periodo espantoso y cruel que todos los españoles tenemos en mente.

Allende también retoma el golpe de estado de Chile y le da una perspectiva diferente de la que le dió en La Casa de los Espíritus, manteniendo un estilo similar.
Aún así sus personajes no tienen la profundidad y el colorido que tenía su primera novela, por lo que la hecho mucho en falta.