Allende is amazing. Another book with characters written to near perfection, a story that winds around politics of Latin America and Europe, guerrilla warfare and romance, a trans woman who is treated as a woman (the most badass, dope woman) in a book written in the eighties--there are a wealth of tense moments, anxieties, anger at decisions made by characters, there are moments where I smiled and I was met with an unexpected, romantic happy ending that didn't feel shoehorned in--it felt as natural as love itself. Wonderful. My only complaint is that it lacked some of the tragedy that I think she does so well. Maybe I'm a sadist or whatever, but I really get behind her stories where shit just goes magnificently wrong in a gut wrenching, soul crushing way. She's just so damn good at destroying me and making me feel emotions at a magnitude I haven't experienced through reading. At the same time, I'm glad that Eva Luna wasn't so devastating.