The Soul Of A Woman by Isabel Allende

 

The Soul Of A Woman by Isabel Allende.

Published 2nd March 2021 by Bloomsbury Publishing.

From the cover of the book:

When I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating.

As a child, Isabel Allende watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the first wave of feminism. She has seen what has been accomplished by the movement in the course of her lifetime. And over the course of three marriages, she has learned how to grow as a woman while having a partner, when to step away, and the rewards of embracing one's sexuality.

So what do women want? To be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to be connected, to have control over their bodies and lives, and above all, to be loved. On all these fronts, there is much work to be done, and this book, Allende hopes, will 'light the torch of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work still left to be finished.'

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The Soul of a Woman is one of those little gems of a book that stay with you long after you have read it. I was privileged to read this as part of a fabulous readalong organised by the Tandem Collective on Instagram, at the same time as reading Allende's sweeping tale of love and loss, A Long Petal of the Sea (see here for my review of that one), and I loved the whole experience.

Part memoir and part exploration of what it means to Allende to be both a woman and a lifelong feminist, The Soul of a Woman is surprisingly easy to read, and had I not been taking it in stages to follow the readalong schedule I could easily have absorbed it in a singe sitting.

Reading this book is just like taking part in a relaxed conversation with Allende and some good female friends over a long, leisurely lunch with a few glasses of wine, and it is easy to imagine the ebb and flow, the laughs and tears that would accompany this event. 

This is not a straightforward feminist treatise, but there is plenty to get your teeth into here, and although I do not agree with everything Allende has to say about what it means to be a woman and how one should live, this is such an honest and forthright account of her own views and feelings - and quite clearly one which is intended to elicit conversation and debate around many of the facets of feminism and womanhood that she explores, rather than dictate how others should feel. It's the voice of a woman who has lived a rich and eventful life and wants to share what she has learned in an attempt to pass on the brand to others to carry on with the work that still needs to be done.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and musing on my own life and views about what it means to be a woman. I have to say that it really added an extra dimension to reading and understanding Allende's fictional A Long Petal of the Sea too, as some of the characters in that book definitely reflect parts of her own experience as a young woman in Chile, so if you get the chance to read both then I highly recommend that you do!

The Soul of a Woman is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing for gifting me a copy of this book in return for an honest review and to the Tandem Collective for organising and inviting me to take part in this brilliant readalong.

About the author:

Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of The House of the Spirits, Daughter of Fortune, Paula, My Invented Country, The Japanese Lover and The Soul of a Woman.. Her books have been translated into more than 35 languages and have sold over 65 million copies worldwide. The Japanese Lover was an international and New York Times bestseller. She lives in California.