I love this author’s work for her compelling description of the mundane, her ability to weave in real historical events into the lived experience of her characters, and her compassionate development of complex characters who are never heroes nor villains but just eminently human. Violeta sustains that energy being a multigenerational family saga told by the 100-year old Violeta as she looks back at her life, and produces a memoir for her grandson, Camilo.

Like many of Allende’s protagonists, Violeta is born into some privilege. This book spans Violeta’s life from her birth during the emergence of the 1920 flu pandemic, the stock market crash and the Great Depression, through the rise of Naziism, fascism, peasant uprisings, revolution and the legacy of colonialism, Western political influence and dictatorship in Latin America, to the end of her life in 2020’s coronavirus pandemic. While this work of historical fiction is not specifically about these historical events, the dramatic events of her life and her dysfunctional family are greatly influenced by these events and through her story, we get a fresh perspective of what it may have been to love through those times.

This is ultimately a book of an entire life, so there is a lot of sadness and trauma in this that linger especially when one looks back at a lifetime and has experienced the pain of regret and loss. This isn’t a maudlin read, Violeta has a good sense of self irony and is witty and humorous, and is viciously honest even with herself about her own failings, yet the overarching mood of this is sort of sad and reflective. This book addresses themes of neglect and abuse, infidelity, sexual assault, addiction, violence and genocide. If you’ve had experience living under an authoritarian regime and experienced loss through it, this might be somewhat triggering. If you haven’t, this has a lot of loss in it, so gird your loins.

That said, this book is absolutely gorgeous. The writing is fantastic… it reads authentically like an old lady wrote it as her memoir and there are so many points reading this that I stopped to reflect. There were so many points of reflection about relationships, faith, regret, wealth. The story of love and family and found family that is built through this book is so real yet so flawed and because of that compellingly human. The character development is as expected from and Allende novel, great, and even the description of the most mundane aspects of her life was compelling. This would have been a perfect 5 stars for me if not that I think it was at times a bit repetitive in parts and I think in places the story could have moved faster. I think fans of the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo will adore this, but I found this to be more encompassing, more meaningful and just… more! I highly highly recommend this!

This book holds a lot of similarities to The House of the Spirits, and a lot of Allende's other books tbh. She doesn't name the country the MC is in but it is very clearly Chile, so we get the history of Childe in the 20th century from a european descendended once wealthy family. The book even suggests that Violeta is related to the family from Allende's first book. But the characters aren't well developed, the story isn't as interesting, it's overall a mediocre book from an author who I know has written better and more interesting works. Additionally while I could tolerate the occasional socially unconcious phrase or word or sentiment in her older works, in a book published in 2022 I feel like Allende should know better, or that at least her editor or publisher would have said something, since Allende is considered to be liberal and willing to learn/update her beliefs (Although maybe not, I read the synopsis of Ines of my soul and went 😬 and put it back)

Violeta es literalmente la historia de un siglo. Sus aventuras son narradas de una manera tan maravillosa que puedes imaginar todo lo que está diciendo sin dificultad. No hay mucho diálogo, lo que puede parecer tedioso para algunos, pero a mí no me molesta. Es increíble saber todo lo que podría pasar una persona en 100 años, y es informativo sobre diferentes temas políticos y económicos en los países de Sudamérica. 

Una lectura no tan ligera ya que al principio va un poco lento, pero a medida que te internas más en la vida de Violeta, quieres saber que pasa después y se lee con mayor facilidad. 

Totalmente recomendado.