Violeta

I received a digital advance copy of Violeta by Isabel Allende via NetGalley. Violeta is scheduled for release on January 25, 2022.

Violeta is a woman looking back over her long (100 years) life in the form of a letter to someone she loves dearly. Through her life, she experiences passion and heartbreak, poverty and wealth, grief and joy. Woven through these emotional experiences are historical events including the fight for women’s rights, political upheaval, and two pandemics.

As I expected with a novel by Allende, this is a big story, covering a large expanse of time and space. It is also a novel with characters that are fully developed, particularly Violeta. While we do get her story from her perspective, which could mean she is doing some editing of her experiences, as a reader you feel as if you are truly getting to know this woman.

While the characters were very well developed, I was missing a bit of the world in this story. It primarily takes place in places I have never been, and I would have loved to have more of those locations described in the novel.

I did enjoy the device of Violeta telling her story to a loved one. For the first half or so of the novel, we are not sure who the person is she is speaking to. This touch of mystery worked for me, until it was revealed who she was sharing her story with. From this point forward, I was looking for a reason for her to share this story with this person. As a reader, I never got that, which made the story feel a bit incomplete. I found myself looking for the point of the story, the message Violeta wanted to share.

Violeta is an epic story exploring one woman’s experience of the world. While I did miss a bit of purpose, I still enjoyed following her through her life of love and loss.