Daughter of fortune~ Isabelle Allende

💬Simply Wonderful

(428 pages)

 Rating: ⭐ 9/10

📖After I read "In the midst of winter" it was certain that other books by Allende would follow, because I have really loved her. I would probably read any of her books, as I really like the way she expresses her ideas and the representation in her texts: I can almost hear and smell the surroundings of the situations and at the same time I feel that I have known her characters so well, as if I had lived with them.

Through this particular story, the reader gets in contact with Chile, China, and America of 1850, and the fiction is so effortlessly connected to the events of the time that it gives the impression of a historical novel, even if that was not its purpose.

The core of the book is the shocking story of young ambitious Eliza who encourages people to take their lives in their own hands.

Eliza Somers falls in love with Joaquin Antieta, a poor laborer, but leaves Chile for Northern California, where gold is discovered that year. Eliza decides to follow him and makes an awesome journey, hidden in the hold of a ship. Fortunately, there she meets Tao Chin En, a Chinese doctor, who ends up following her on her difficult journey in the America of the time.

The book's descriptiveness confronts you with the harsh conditions of slavery, prostitution and violence that reach uncontrollable levels, the greed of male goldsmiths, racism, poverty, but basically the lack of respect for human life.

However, every difficulty and every dark period of history often leads to a beautiful and hopeful future. So this wonderful book ends with America flourishing, evolving into a country of freedom and opportunity, and with Eliza and her patron Tao Chi Yen finally finding happiness.

Because, as the author probably believes, happiness is often created unexpectedly in strange places and following a different path from the predetermined one.

"In life we ​​get nowhere Eliza. We just move on. Nothing is in vain"