Elisa’s Reviews > Paula > Status Update

It’s hard to rate a book like this, a memoir about one’s child dying. As a parent, it’s gut wrenching, all your worst fears realizes, and just reading it was heartbreaking. At the same time, the tone with which Allende tells the story of her own life, is so different from the narrative of Paula’s illness. I don’t think she means to but it paints her as a pretty inattentive parent in some ways, selfish to the point of putting men in front of her kids, of stumbling into another family’s life and disrupting their home, throwing out their things… I thing it shows her lack of self awareness as a person. Which just makes me wonder how the narrative of Paula would’ve been better were Allende more aware/empathic/whatever. Many TW for instances of animal abuse, animal killings and pedophilia (which even the author seems to excuse).