There are two pieces to this book. The first is a fairly interesting description of the Kuna people, living on islands near Columbia. The second is the story of Jenny, a research assistant attempting to study the eagles on one of their islands.

Jenny is our narrator, and we learn the culture through her. The culture itself is alien enough to be fascinating, but we don't learn enough of it. What we do have is chapter after chapter of Jenny feeling depressed and acting like a scared girl, and then being told that she is beautiful and powerful and the only white person the Kuna has ever liked.

Combine that with an assortment of cliches (e.g. the fat evil priest, several noble savages) and that's the whole book: one half travelogue, one half Mary Sue. ( )

I'm not sure that I can recommend this book. It does read as a novelized anthropology study however I found the lead character to be rather out of touch with her own feelings. Her day dreams and relationships seemed to be out of the blue and arbitrary. While I have no doubt that the landscape this book is set in is lush, rich and full the authors descriptions - or rather her lack of descriptions - left me feeling as if I had watched this story on an iPod. I would have to say that this book is for the die-hard fan of Latin American travel narrative. ( )

I'm conflicted about this book. I had a real hard time getting started with it. Once I got into it I kept thinking, "This is no good." Yet I kept on, even looking forward to it. I think I kept hoping it would get better. It lacked depth. There would be interesting happenings that would just fall flat leaving me to say, "Why?", "What happened?" It was as if it were a non-fiction book with facts that couldn't be supplied. Being that it is fiction - come on, make a good story! Many of the situations the main character found herself in were reacted to in a weak and unbelievable way. ( )

I read Seducing the Spirits expecting a Poisonwood Bible (Kingsolver)-type book. This book was not quite there, but was overall enjoyable. The author used beautiful language and imagery in her descriptions of everything (in particular I really enjoyed Jenny's plane ride in the beginning).

I had some issues with the plot of the story though; the main character went from simply "trying not to piss off the Kuna people" from becoming a lot more. It seemed unrealistic to me and there were some other plot inconsistencies. I was not the biggest fan of the main character in general (in fact, she reminded me a lot of the Clan of the Cave Bear (Auel)'s Ayla-- very perfect, beautiful and almost helpless in her brillance); she seemed to play dumb a little too much and tended to rely too much on others' good nature.

This book is definitely worth a read-- it's a short(er) book and gives a nice overview of assimilating into/with a very foreign culture and people. ( )

I enjoyed reading this book, however I didn't really like the main character, Jenny. I liked everything that she was learning about the Kunas and their lifestyle. I liked every Kuna character and thought they were very well developed and felt like I wanted to go to their village and meet them and learn more about them. On the other hand, the main female character, an American, I couldn't identify with at all. I don't feel like she was very realistic and many of the ways she responded to the Kunas was strange. There were also parts of the book that I felt needed to be broken up more, one paragraph would blend into the next and suddenly days would pass, but then one whole night would be one chapter. This structure made some parts confusing. This was a pretty short book and a quick read and I enjoyed most parts. I would recommend this to someone who is interested in research in a foreign land and learning to live with natives of that country. ( )