The sum of our days is a simple memoir by Isabelle Allende that is written so perfectly it feels like you are reading silk. In her second of three memoirs she describes the life of her tribe from her matriarchal point of view. After writing Paula, about the death of her daughter, this second volume weaves together the comings and goings of her second husband willie, her son Nico and his first wife and remarriage as well as 12 other fascinating characters that you wish you could meet.
She talks about writing a lot and left me feeling that this book, primarily reconstructed from the letters she wrote daily to her mother, is her version of a daily blog, with the spectacular difference if her total mastery of the writing process.
She is irreverent, meddling, and unconditionally loving to her flock. I gave the book a six for content, because it really did seem quotidien. I gave it a nine for style only because I choked on giving it a ten, although it deserves it. And finally I gave it a seven on impact, and I could lower that score. In a memoir I like a call to action, this didn't have one. It was total show without telling and what she showed was how messy, imperfect, and interwoven the life of a tribe is.
In my ranking I placed it above Slavenka Draklic's Cafe Europa and after Gabriella Hamilton's Blood, Bones, and Butter.
Bastard Out of Carolina, Dorothy Allison,
Tattoos On The Heart, Gregory Boyle
Why I Came West, Rick Bass
All Over But The Shoutin, Rick Bragg
(Orange, HD)
(The Sum Of Our Days, HD)
Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grearly
Truth and Beauty, Ann Patchett
Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal, Jeanette WInterson
Blood, Bones, and Butter, Gabrielle Hamilton
The Sum Of Our Days, Isabelle Allende
Cafe Europa, Slavenka Drakulic
Orange is the New Black, Piper Kerman (HD put it after Tattos)
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
Liars´ Club, Mary Karr
Don´t Let´s the Dogs Go Out, Alexandra Fuller
Wild, Cheryl Strayed
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