A very dense, emotional memoir of the period of time the author spent caring for her daughter, Paula, who fell into a coma during treatment for a rare blood disease. Isabel uses the hours by her daughter's bedside to record the story of her own life for Paula to have should she recover. Anyone who enjoyed Allende's wonderful first novel, "House of the Spirits," will learn the actual events behind much of that book.
The characters grow beyond Isabel's and Paula's family and ancestors to capture other hospital patients and caregivers, all united by their desire for Paula's well-being. This is a painful, humorous, and love-filled book, heavily infused with Isabel's spirituality and sensuality. The ending is just lovely. ( )

This work of grieving and honoring was written after the loved and happily married adult daughter of the Author was stricken with porphyria. Isabel mothered and wrote at the bedside as Paula gradually lost her senses and died, after a year of torments and losses. The Author presents a rich table set with her "spiritual" skills. She observes much and examines what she observes without failing to honor the life of the dying. All who have grieved the slow death of a beloved member of the family can find solace here, at this bedside, with this parallel of connections.

She begins with the moving quote by Robert Bly: "We did not come to remain whole. We came to lose our leaves like the trees. The trees that are broken/ And start again, drawing up from the great roots." Allende writes with roots. ( )

I don't particularly care for memoirs (this is a book club read) so it's hard to put a rating to something I'm inclined to dislike at the get-go. However, I do think this is a better variety of memoir than so many out there and the political aspects of memoir are really interesting. ( )

Beautifully written (of course) but crushingly sad. ( )

Heartbreaking memoir about the loss of Isabel Allende’s daughter, Paula, at age twenty-nine, to porphyria. I am sure Allende realized the need to add other elements to this account so it would not dwell endlessly on sadness. She wrote this book in the form of a letter to her daughter, telling her about their family’s history and things that happened while Paula was hospitalized, hoping she would read it when she got well. Unfortunately, that never happened. It is a poignant memoir of love and loss written in a beautifully flowing style. ( )