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    Paula: A Memoir
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    Paula: A Memoir
    Unavailable
    Paula: A Memoir
    Ebook488 pages10 hours

    Paula: A Memoir

    By Isabel Allende

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    When Isabel Allende's daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, the author began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. In the telling, bizarre ancestors appear before our eyes; we hear both delightful and bitter childhood memories, amazing anecdotes of youthful years, and the most intimate secrets passed along in whispers. With Paula, Allende has written a powerful autobiography whose straightforward acceptance of the magical and spiritual worlds will remind readers of her first book, The House of the Spirits.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateApr 15, 2014
    ISBN9780062254405
    Author

    Isabel Allende

    Isabel Allende is the author of twelve works of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Maya’s Notebook, Island Beneath the Sea, Inés of My Soul, Daughter of Fortune, and a novel that has become a world-renowned classic, The House of the Spirits. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California.

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    Reviews for Paula

    4.5/5

    38 ratings20 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 5/5
      The most beautiful book I have ever read.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my all-time favorite books. Allende writes great fiction but this account of her own family history is even more powerful.
    • 5/5
      If you have read and enjoyed any of Isabel Allende's novels, I highly recommend this memoir written by Allende while her daughter Paula lay in a coma. Having read The House of the Spirits and Of Love and Shadows, it was incredible to read about the real life occurrences and people that inspired those novels. Mix that with a mother's love and anguish towards her comatose daughter, and the result is a rich and compelling read.
    • 5/5
      very touching...
      make you cry with isable allende
    • 4/5
      Moving reminiscence of Allende's daughter as she battles a life-threatening illness.
    • 5/5
      Very haunting, inspiring and so very sad - have the tissues ready. Very courageous author.
    • 5/5
      Allende is the best storyteller. She recounts the story of her life while seated at her daughter's bedside, first in Spain and then later at her home in California where Paula eventually dies. As a member of a diplomatic family with ties to the most powerful people in Chile, she leads an interesting life in many countries.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Very well-woven memoir which dives to the heart of this author, a mother's grief during the entire time of her daughter's coma, while simultaneously dancing through a chronological history of her own life and the lives of all her loved ones. Allende's choice of words and phrasing is precise, playful, evocative - her life and emotions bared honestly for all to see.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      The writing and storytelling is everything I have come to expect from Allende -- vivid, engaging, and emotional.On a more personal note, I read this at a time in which it strongly resonated: My husband's brother was still in a coma/vegetative state after a car accident and was recovering; I had considered suggesting the book to my future mother-in-law, but felt it might be too difficult and close to home for her to enjoy. In hindsight, I am glad I did not loan it, though I think it a wonderful and important book to read: My brother-in-law, though he did wake from his coma and begin rehabilitation, died in August, 2005 from a blood infection.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Isabel Allende shares the story of her life through 1992, including the military coup of her uncle Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. Paula is Allende's 28-year-old daughter, a newlywed in a coma from inherited (from her father) porphyria. Allende interweaves the story of her life with the story of her daughter's last year, spent in a hospital in Spain and Allende's home in California. Moving and magical.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I bought this book a few years ago, but avoided reading it because it was such a sad story about the death of her daughter. I finally read it this year, as my mother was dying. It is a wonderful book about Allende's extraordinary life, brilliantly structured and beautifully written, and comforting to me, in my own sadness.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Moving memior. Sad, yet uplifting. Touching and beautiful.
    • 5/5
      I was very touched by this moving story. After reading Paula, I have to comment on what an extraordinary person Isabel Allende is. Not only is she a wonderful story teller, but she has lived a very incredible life! I consider her to be a very brave person to be able to write not only a story about her daughter's death, but also about her own life. To have done some of the things that she did in her life, and then to share them with the rest of the world definitely took some courage. I think she has a certain strength that not many of us have, and if we do, it often takes some life-changing event to bring it out. Isabel seems to have lived with this inner strength for much of her life. She is an inspiration to women everywhere. Allende in this book was able to make us laugh at life, even when we wanted to cry with her. This book was incredible!
    • 3/5
      Not quite fiction. Allende describes her family history for her comatose daughter.
    • 4/5
      At the age of 28 Isabel Allende's daughter, Paula, was stricken by porphyria and lapsed into a coma. Paula was written at her bedside as a way to work through emotions and unfinished business. Allende re-tells the tragic story of Paula's illness and treatment, while simultaneously recounting her life story. I cannot begin to imagine the strain of caring for someone with a long-term illness. Allende approached the situation with fierce devotion and drive, doing everything within her power to help Paula. She rallied other family members even during the darkest times, and turned to her writing for emotional release. Isabel Allende is one of my favorite authors, so I found it quite interesting to learn about her childhood, the family members who inspired her writing, and her escape from Chile's political unrest. In turn, she inspired me as a feminist, a mother, and a deeply spiritual woman.
    • 4/5
      The authors whispers moving secrets to her dying daughter. Makes you think.
    • 3/5
      The first half of this books feels voyeuristic to me- just a little bit too revealing.Writing is a long process of introspection; it is a voyage toard the darkest caverns of consciousness, a long, slow meditation.Sage advice from her uncle;"Remember that all the others are more afraid that you."Allende's daughter lay dying, she wants to comfort her son in law but she has nothing;How can I console him when I myself am without hope?Advice she received from a male relative shortly before walking down the aisle;He thought marriage was a miserable bargain for a woman; on the other hand, he recommended it without reservation to all his male descendants.I was blissed out during pregnancy. It sounds like Allende shared the same feelings;Those months you were inside me were a time of perfect happinessNovels are made of the demented and the villainous, of people tortured by obsessions, of victims of the implacable mill of destiny.On the perpetuation of Latin machismo by females;What is unforgivable, though, is that it is women who perpetuate and reinforce the system, continuing to raise arrogant sons and servile daughters. If they would agree to revise the standards, they could end machismo in one generation.What is there on the other side of life? Only night silence and solitude? What remains when there are no more desires or memories or hope? What is there in death? If I could be still, without speaking or thinking,...Children, like books, are voyages into one's inner self, during which body, mind, and soul shift course and turn toward the very center of existence.More on writing fiction.Recently, I have been empty, my inspiration has dried up, but it is also possible that stories are creatures with their own lives and that they exist in the shadows of some mysterious dimension; in that case, it will be a question of opening so they may enter, sink into me, and grow until they are ready to emerge transformed into language. They do not belong to me, they are not my creations, but, if I succeed in breaking down the wall of anguish in which I am enclosed, I can again serve them as medium.The problem with fiction is that it must seem credible, while reality seldom is.
    • 4/5
      Autobiography written for her daughter Paula as she (Paula) lay dying. Pretty good, although it was slow towards the end.
    • 2/5
      I think Isabel Allende was more interested in writing about herself than her daughter Paula. However, I read this in year 11 and much of what I remember about it is making fun of it with my classmates.
    • 4/5
      Ravishingly touching account of life, death and hope for the future, especially powerful during Blackie's terminal illness.