Review: Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende

Challenges: 
Read the World, South America

This is the story of Irene, a young woman living in Chile under the military dictatorship. She is from the upper classes and while her mother struggles to keep up facades after Irene’s father has left them, Irene herself doesn’t really notice all the bad things going on around her. 

Francisco is a young man brought up by immigrant parents who fled Franco’s Spain and are struggling to keep up their preferred way of life in Chile. Unlike Irene he knows exactly what is going on out in the real world and he does his best to try and help people.

When the two get entangled in the fate of one young girl named Evangelina Irene’s naiveté is crushed and replaced by a desire to do something. What she does, with the help of Francisco, has farreaching consequences however. 

This book started off pretty slow for me. I wasn’t really enjoying it because I felt like there was a lot of background story about pretty inconsequential people while the plot stood still. Towards the middle of the book the plot picked up and I started enjoying it more. It gives a bleak insight into the Chile of the day and how power corrupts. It also deals with protest and public outcry and what these things can and cannot do depending on the size and volume of the protests. 


I gave this book 3 stars out of 5. 

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