Violeta - Isabel Allende

What an incredible novel following the long and prosperous life of a woman named Violeta Del Valle.

Isabel Allende’s 317 page novel is like nothing I’ve ever read before. I found it to be a gripping and educational read that had me reading for pleasure whilst learning about the traumas and beauty of life.

Allende has written a novel about a complicated family with a complex life. It’s such a simple read among all the chaos she brings into it. It’s beautiful, heartbreaking, and full of authentic love and affection.

Allende’s protagonist, Violeta, starts her life during the Spanish Influenza and has nothing but an intriguing story from there. Illnesses shatter souls, decisions destroy families, and love breaks the hearts of those most innocent to the world around them. Violeta loses people, she finds people, and she lives for herself. It makes you question why sometimes we’re so hard on ourselves when others can have it much worse at times, but it also brings joy and relatability to the lives of those who read this spellbinding masterpiece. The amount of subject matters that Allende covers/brings to light is vast, showing her readers just how much can happen during one’s life, and where each little thing can lead you when you feel lost.

I loved this book. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read a story written by the extraordinary Isabel Allende, but doesn’t know where to start. This certainly throws you in the deep end, but it sets you up nicely for what the rest of her books may bring - Violeta being her second newest novel after The Wind Knows My Name, which was published in 2023. The House of Spirits was her first.

Violeta deserves five stars for every aspect of this novel; from it’s overall rating, to its quality of writing (considering it had been written in Spanish originally and translated into English later on), to its well developed characters, and plot. It’s a family saga set in a historical time period that takes you right up to the year 2020, and boy does Allende do a good job of conveying what each era of Violeta’s life was like to live in at each point in time. Her research is impeccable, and the way she encompasses what she’s found is presented in an outstanding way. She’s an inspiration, not only for a writer’s own writing, but I’m sure she’s inspired people, and given them the motivation to research information for their own historical novels; or whatever genre they may be exploring. Because I know research is my least favourite part of writing, but somehow, Isabel Allende makes it all seem so much more worth it than it was before I’d laid a hand on her novel.

Allende is brilliant, and I have no doubt that her other novels are just as brilliant as her and the book I’m writing about today. So please, take the time to read one of her great pieces of modern literature. You’ll be better off with her stories in your life. They’re different from the cliche romance novels, or spooky horror stories, and intricate plots that make the realistic fiction we all know and love. These are books that are meant for reading at least once in your lifetime. Allende has some powerful things to say and every word that makes up Violeta’s story is just as meaningful as the last.

So if you’re stuck on what to read next, and you need a novel with strong characters, a courageous female lead, an enticing story from start to end, and a plot that simply isn’t difficult to get through or a bore at times, Violeta by Isabel Allende is the book for you!

Buy your own copy using the link below:

UK: https://amzn.eu/d/h5sFhkz

The Empusium - Olga Tokarczuk

The Empusium is a novel about a young man, named Mieczyslaw Wojnicz (pronounced: Mi-etchy-swuff Voy-nitch) who has a mild case of Tuberculosis. He takes it upon himself to travel to Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentleman in the Silesian Mountains, where residents are cared for during their stay. Little does Wojnicz know that the health resort he’s at starts to become a trip full of sinister nightmares.

People die. Hallucinations occur. Eerie noises are heard. And deep philosophical conversations stir emotions. It’s a novel full of deep, thought provoking messages surrounding life and the world lived in before the wars began. Translated concisely by Antonia Lloyd-Jones from Polish to English, written originally by Olga Tokarczuk, who tells the tale with long bouts of description that capture the scenes unfolding with clear powerful imagery and hair-raising action.

It’s heavy on description and quite minimal on dialogue, which I personally find quite difficult to get through. Tokarczuk approached it splendidly, with real sophistication that told the story in an elegant way, but I’m not a fan of long winded passages that sometimes lose my undivided attention because they go too long without the action of people conversing. Dialogue carries a story as well, and I find it more engaging when the characters too are telling the story through words. But - especially in the final thrilling scene - I began to understand how description over dialogue can be quite a bit more powerful. There was no need for speech, the feelings and inner thoughts of Tokarczuk’s protagonist was enough to create a horrific scene that left me with a spine-chilling, and quite harrowing feeling inside. And that’s exactly what I expect from a horror story.

At times I felt it was a little confusing, with certain concepts being mentioned once and then never mentioned again until 70 or 80 pages later, and by then I’d forgotten all about that idea which had me lost at times; questioning what was meant by a certain phrase, or what was actually happening at a certain time. On top of the jumping back and forth; as an English speaker, name referrals were something I didn’t fully understand or follow too easily. Sometimes people were called different names to the names they’d been originally referred to, with honourifics that I’m not familiar with at all, and this chopped and changed which had me concentrating hard on each little detail in each masterfully described scene.

However, the key at the beginning of the book was useful a reference for when I got bewildered by the various number of titles and names of characters used to propel the story along. I do however, solely respect their way of addressing people, it just wasn’t something I’m used to as I’m not a fluent Polish or German speaker.

A translated novel like this made a change from reading books written by English speaking author’s. This is something that pushed me out of my comfort zone. I selected a book that I know will reach a few people immediately, and perhaps it’ll sway the minds of those who only ever stick to romance, or sci-fi, or even fantasy, because I know it pulled me out of my typical books of choice and I don’t see why it wouldn’t draw others away from their standard novels either.

The Empusium was certainly a new kind of horror story that compelled me right through to end, with creepy happenings that were key milestones carrying Wojnicz through his stay at the health resort. With characters who expressed their anticipation for the future, inflicting fear and anxiety upon Wojnicz which as a reader I felt as well. It’s a place I wouldn’t want to be in, and Tokarczuk did an excellent job of making me feel that way. I give her four stars for a brilliant, magical story drawn from ideas all over. Starting with Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain to phrases taken from author’s such as Charles Darwin, William Shakespeare, Johnathan Swift and many more.

If you like who Tokarczuk has referenced, or you simply like the idea of a health resort gone wrong in a completely disturbing and unnatural way, this is the book for you. Otherwise, get out of your comfort zone, you might like it, and she’s got plenty of other books too which are just as wonderful and worth the read but I’m yet to give them a go myself.

So for now, I’ll stick to The Empusium, where horror meets health resort in the 1910s.

Buy your own copy using the link below:

UK: https://amzn.eu/d/0zT8kwN

Malibu Rising - Taylor Jenkins Reid

Malibu Rising is a historically set family saga that follows the lives of the Riva family. The book spans across one day and focuses on the children of Mick and June Riva, though it flashes back to their own personal lives - where the two meet and fall in love, expressing their hopes and dreams for the future - throughout the story, weaving the aftermath of their reckless choices and purposeful neglect into the outcomes of Nina’s, Jay’s, Hud’s, and Kit’s lives during August 1983. And when secrets start to come out, people finally start showing up, and ineffective apologies get told, the Riva family are left fighting one big disaster that could make or break each and every one of them. Can Mick Riva, the all famous star of the family make amends for what he’s done in the past? Or will his children who live in the shadows of his limelight and the remains of their mother’s harmful mistakes fail to forgive?

I mean…wow. This is my favourite book of the year, or I should probably say so far…there’s plenty to come but this book glued the pages that make up Taylor Jenkins Reid’s story to the palms of my hands so that I couldn’t put it down. Each time I did, I picked it up again not even five minutes later. From beginning to end this family kept me on the edge of my seat, wondering what kind of secrets may or may not crop up throughout the story putting a pause on their lives, just to break their bond that little bit more. And as much as I wanted the Riva’s to live the perfect carefree life, it wouldn’t have been a story if they all had a flawless existence, living happily ever after. It needed every bit of heartbreak, anger, grief, and loneliness to push the plot along; with speckles of love, devotion and affection, to ease the tough moments they had to endure.

         It was shocking and unfeigned at times, and irresistible and warm during others. And for me, a good book makes me feel warm inside yet churns my emotions and tugs them in every direction. Whether I’m full of resentment for what Jenkins-Reid made me read through, or whether I was silently cheering and hoping for Hud and Ashley to stay together because they were just the cutest couple ever, despite the setbacks they knew they’d have to face; I felt it all and experienced every bit of vehemence that the Riva kids felt. I had a lot of love for each character, but they also had flaws that every other person in the world has and that bugged me. But it’s only natural and it’s that which decided how each person was going to live their life, and how damaging those choices were going to be.

         This was truly the perfect novel, probably better for a long summer break rather than a drowsy few days in January, but because it was such a beautifully written story with description (with the opening sentence: “Consciousness seeped into her slowly, as if breaking the morning to her gently”) better than anything I’ve ever seen or come up with myself - much like her novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - it was enthralling, so much so I wish they were all real, living in the world we all live in. Just so I could hear the talent behind Mick Riva’s most dear passion, so that I could support Nina in her struggle to take care of her siblings. Because we all go through it, and to have to witness everything, helpless but knowing that they were clearly a strong group of people, was both gruelling and exciting.

         To know the family is to know the gossip, and we all love a bit of that from time to time. If their story was in the papers, I’d be all over it, but I think Jenkins-Reid did me one better. I got to live through it by reading the delicate chapters of her five star novel. It’s one of her best books yet, and she’s linked almost all of her other novels into it some way or another. And that itself paints this extravagant picture of a world that does exist in reality, it shows us what living with fame and all its beauty and even ugliness is like, yet her version of it is so amazingly imagined and portrayed it doesn’t feel real at all.

         So, if you’ve read her other novels, or enjoy a long story that delves into the complex structure of a family, or simply adore reading about fabled celebrities who struggle to cope with the side effects of being world renowned, then Malibu Rising is the book you’re looking for. It’s fun, a blast, even, and I guarantee you a good time -whoever decides to try it out. It’s totally worth it. Trust me.

Buy your own copy using the link below:

UK: https://amzn.eu/d/e1H4Fxr