Thanks for posting. I thought for sure that everyone had forgotten about me in my long absence!

I haven't read a whole lot of Allende. My favorite out of the books of hers that I've read is -Of Love and Shadows-. It has less of the typical magical realism stuff, but seemed to me to be imbued with greater feeling and much truer to life. Some magical realism strikes me as somewhat gimicky, and this book certainly was not. Of course, in talking about Allende, you have to mention -The House of the Spirits-, but I didn't actually enjoy that as much. It's certainly worth reading, and is a very impressive achievement, but I was very disappointed by the ending. I don't want to reveal anything, so I'll just say that it seemed to me that she was about to make a really powerful statement and she chickened out.

So there you have it... It's nice to hear from you.