Eva Luna (part 2)

After reading the rest of the book, I found it to be an interesting and captivating book overall. In my first impressions from my previous blog, I was not able to get used to the author’s style of writing. To be honest, if it wasn’t required to read for our class, I would not have bothered reading the rest of it. I think this is the first time I’ve read a novel written by a latin American author up until now as I have mostly only read excerpts of novels and of historical books by Latin American authors. I think as a reader, when you are used to read certain authors’ books, you don’t necessarily realize that your expectations of a “good” novel can actually evolve depending on the kind of book you are reading. In Eva Luna, the author mixes fiction with real political and social events which we, as a reader, can relate to, somewhat, historically (for example when referring to Christopher Columbus, civil unrest, corruption…etc).
I have read other books which mix reality and fiction but I think Allende has made Eva’s story exceptionally convincing through her writing. At times, I felt like this story was going to end tragically such as when Eva is tortured for Zulema’s death by the General. Having said that, I still think that there were too many characters in the story, and as a result, many of the characters lacked depth. Perhaps it was the author’s intention but in my opinion it weakened the storyline. It is only near the end when Eva and Rolf meet and only at the end that they bond. What happens with Rolf’s relationship with the cousins? Will he remain faithful? The focus on the love story did not seem as significant as all the political and social events that occurred in the story (such as when Eva becomes a writer) even if the author implied their future romance through the play on the two stories leading to their encounter.