And the Favorite Is.....

                                   

My favorite book that we read this semester was Inés of My Soul, by Isabel Allende. I don’t think that this one will be the favorite of very many people in the class- it didn’t really come up a whole lot during our class discussions later on in the semester- but I really enjoyed it.

I thought the book was written fairly well and was very engaging. I was invested in the story line and in the characters, especially Inés. I admire her as well. She was a strong, spirited woman who was able to overcome huge trials and hardships. She was a lady and a warrior.Though I have not gone through nearly the amount of pain and hardship as Inés did, I felt a strange attachment to her. I was able to relate to her. She was someone who I think I would have enjoyed having conversations with. I probably would have felt wildly inadequate and weak around her, but she probably would have been a role model.

I think I enjoyed the book so much because it took place in a location that is very close to my heart- Chile. My father is Chilean and all of his family still lives in Chile, so the country and its people mean a lot to me. It is always interesting to learn more about important places in ones ancestry. It was enjoyable and interesting to learn the background of people and places that were previously just names to me. I knew Pedro Valdivia played an important part in early history of Chile. I knew the Mapuche were the indigenous people who lived in Chile before the Spaniards arrived and I knew they were (and still are) proud, resilient, and tough people, but I did not know any stories to go along with that knowledge. Now that I know the things I did not know before (sometimes I did not even know what I did not know) I am able to appreciate Chile’s history more than I did before.