Allende, born in 1942, begins this memoir by saying ’When I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, even before the concept was known in my family, I am not exaggerating.’ It’s very rare that a book grabs my attention from the first sentence on, but Allende did just that. As Dorothy says to Jerry Maguire, “You had me at hello.”

Being labelled a feminist has had different connotations through the ages, and different labels have been applied as years have passed, but it’s safe to say that none of us were around during the abolitionist movement that ended up allowing women the right to vote in America - 27 years after New Zealand, 18 years after Australia, 14 years after Finland and and 12 years after the UK.

In the U.S., feminists like Gloria Steinem began to be seen and heard from, as well as seen on television in the 1970’s after NOW, the National Organization for Women, was formed, and the Equal Rights Amendment, originally introduced in 1923 was finally passed in 1972. For many, at the time, feminism was considered not only unnecessary because women were, supposedly, elevated to some sort of pedestal where they were considered to have an advantaged station in life.

Embracing all of the positives of being a woman, Allende shares her life story while sharing her beliefs on what it means to be a feminist in a variety of ways, incorporating some of the women she’s met and felt deeply inspired by, the love and assistance they’ve offered to others. The grace and reverence that must be given to who and what we are, as we are, always learning more. She also shares some of the ways that being a woman of any and all ages has brought her not only wisdom through her years, but has shaped her views on life, as well as her writing - especially in her early writing years when the majority of writers were men.

There is also love - love of the men she’s shared her life with, her children, the love she’s found in friendships through her life. Along with her many life experiences over the years, she shares her grief over loss. And yet, a woman who has loved her life, is loving her life as her journey hopefully still has years to come, she shares her frustrations - but also the joys - of aging, and what she’s learned along the way. It all feels like a personal conversation, a sharing of her soul.

"Every year I have lived and every wrinkle I have tell my story."

And what an impressive, lovely, positively hopeful and inspiring story. A joy to read.


Pub Date: 02 Mar 2021

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing - Ballantine / Ballantine Books

I absolutely loved this book by one of my favorite authors! So wonderful to hear of her philosophy of women, relationships, parenting, the pandemic, and much more. My only criticism is that it’s way too short. I want to know more! She is an outstanding contribution to literature, community, and the world. Highly recommend this one. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for providing an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is a new memoir from Allende, and the first of her nonfiction works I have read. This was a very informative look into her life, as well as global issues surrounding various facets of feminism that have inspired both her literary and charitable work.

I very much enjoyed this work and thought it was a very good insight into her motivations surrounding her writing process, especially with her characterizations based on gender. I also enjoyed seeing some of her thoughts and support for modern social movements in the US, especially from the perspective of an older woman from a more traditionalist culture. Her thoughts and perspectives on the beauty of aging were especially reassuring and beautiful.

I think this is a good read for people with prior exposure to Allende's work, but I don't know if this would appeal quite as much to a general audience. Overall, I thought this was a solid memoir, and I overall enjoyed it

I loved this book! It was heartwarming and strong. It was exactly what I needed with everything going on in the world! A happy little escape!

Allende’s part memoir, part feminist manifesto is compelling from the first word. She weaves her personal stories in with her belief systems beautifully. What I most enjoyed about this book is it felt as though I was having a long conversation with a glass of wine with one of my favorite authors.

This book is described as a meditation on what it means to be a woman and this absolutely fits the bill. Meditations and observations on feminism that remain relevant in our contemporary times. This book is filled with inspiring quotes and anecdotes you will want to reference time and again.  A fascinating review of the authors life and experiences in the context of her experience as a woman. I can see this book appealing to a broad range of women regardless of age or creed. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to review this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I’ve read quite a few of Isabel Allende’s novels and while I haven’t loved them all equally, I’m a big fan, so it was impossible to pass this up after reading Diane S’s and Elyse’s reviews. Rather than a straight narrative memoir, it was as if she was speaking about what crossed her mind, moving back and forth between different times in her life. It’s a wonderful self reflection, a tribute to some women in her life, a focus on her feminist views and with all of this, she eloquently imparts the wisdom of her years . It’s a little about her early life, her mother’s experience and her own when her father left. From an early age, this seemed to shape her views on the role of women, her fervor for feminism, passion for justice and equality . It’s a little about her writing and what it was like being a woman writer in the male dominated literary world . Allende writes about her love of her children, her love life describing her three marriages and spends a good bit of time reflecting on aging, discussing violence against women around the world and the work of her foundation to help women. This book was a joy to read and I highly recommend it, especially to the young women of the world who will gain much from the passion and intelligence of Isabel Allende.


I received an advanced copy of this book from Random House through NetGalley.

Words of wisdom from one of the world's most prolific and beloved writers. As if we needed another reason to love Isabel Allende's magnificent way with words. She uses this marvelous book to touch on what it means to navigate an existence as a woman in a patriarchal world where women are too often relegated to the background. She challenges gender norms and accepted stereotypes and uses her own personal history as an example. There are intimate details of her family life showcasing the lessons she has learned, the joys she has felt, the losses she has endured and the things that keep her going strong.

With "The Soul of a Woman," Ms. Allende pays a delightful homage to all women past and present and creates a path for the next generation that is speckled with petals of wisdom to guide them on their own journey. Such a spectacular read which I highly recommend.

This is a departure from Isabel Allende's usual fiction. I enjoyed reading about her personal perspective but I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoy her works of fiction.

I am an Isabel Allende fan. This is nonfiction so not quite my normal Allende read.
Although this novel is a memoir there is a disclaimer at the beginning that some details and name have been changed as a result of the author’s creative mind and is coincidental to anyone that they seem to resemble.
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I am sure you have noticed that many female authors who have had great success in writing fiction stories are turning to more serious topics. This is tribute to feminism.


Want to thank NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine for this early release granted to me for a honest professional review. Publishing Release Date scheduled for March 2, 2021

The Soul Of A Woman is another beautiful book by Isabel Allende. Her writing is so wonderful and I think she just keeps getting better. Highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review

Overall an interesting and strong read. I’ve been a fan for close to two decades and have read her previous memoirs though I guess this isn’t strictly one, and Allende still entertains and teaches me something new about herself and my favorite topic, history.

Allende writes an amusing memoir, chock full of her assertions pertaining to women’s issues. I don’t read her fiction. I read one book several years ago and it wasn’t my cup of tea. The Soul of. A Woman is a fast read. I enjoyed her sharing bits and pieces of her past. In my opinion, the single best sentence in the entire book is when her grandfather asked her if a cat had urinated on her head, after she had her first highlights. She has led an interesting life and I was intrigued By her rumination on life as a woman in her 70s. I don’t agree with her lectures on everything she discusses in the book, but that’s ok. It was an amusing read.

This book is a glimpse into the mind of Isabel Allende! Isabel was a very young girl when she realized that things were not equal where men and women were concerned and she didn’t like it or understand the divide. Her mother, Panchita and grandfather told her to stop asking so many questions because she would scare off any decent suitors or worse gain the attention of the corrupt government. Isabel became a reporter and reported on a lot of the abuses women of all cultures suffered, women with no education, no income, held down by the men in their culture which translates into no power for the women because the men were threatened by powerful women. My take away from this delightful book is that the Women’s Movement may have begun with the first burn your bra demonstration but is still an ongoing struggle all over the world and going forward we have to continue to assert and speak for ourselves.

Isabel Allende is one of my favorite authors and I thoroughly enjoyed this inserting, intimate nonfiction book from.

It feels so wrong to rate anything by Isabel Allende two stars, but compared to her other works, I did not enjoy this one much at all. The lofty description gave me hope, but what I found was a rather jumbled book that meandered a lot and reiterated ideas/thoughts that have been written about better elsewhere. I suppose that when you're an author of Allende's stature, you can get pretty much anything published, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be awe-inspiring.
With age and experience comes opportunities for deep reflection and acquired wisdom, and this is where the book is at its best. Allende has lived a full life, and she has formed strong beliefs and opinions along the way that can be useful to others searching for their own truths. Yet at times, she comes across as out of touch and slightly judgmental on topics like gender identity.
For me, this book did not stand out much. There are other peoples' accounts on feminism that have had a larger impact on my own relationship with feminism, but I'm sure there will be plenty of readers who will love this.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the copy of this book. It was a pleasure to read it. Isabel is s an amazing writer and it was so nice to find out we share so many things.
I guess I didn't think to much but I defiantly understand her values as feminist. I'm from Brazil and spend half of my life there and I couldn't wait to escape the machismo and the patriarchy that is so much prevalent in Latin America culture.
This book has an special value now that we elected the first female VP!

My first exposure to Isabel Allende was her book The House of the Spirits, which I LOVED. It was beautiful and moving. When I saw that she wrote The Soul of a Woman, I wanted to read it immediately thinking she would be the perfect author to express what the title of this book describes. The Soul of a Woman is an amazingly fast read of which I was surprised with 204 pages. Perhaps that was the problem - I read too quickly.  

Her voice is powerfully engaging. However, the message of the book felt distracted and disjointed. She covered many topics about being a woman, but there was nothing new on the topic of feminism. Her feminist viewpoint of Chile was noteworthy, but that was not the focus of the book. Unfortunately, the message she was trying to express suffered. Were there nuggets of interest? Yes. And a lot of quotables too. I was intrigued most when she spoke personally about her own life experiences - these were true testaments of feminine power - rather than her scattered feminist observations. Those intimate, powerful moments were the true glimpses of The Soul of a Woman, and I was left longing for more.

As Allende says towards the end of the book, this is meant to be an informal conversation on feminism and the experiences in Allende’s life that have shaped her view point. Filled with personal trials, tribulations, victories and losses, Allende provides a perspective that is hard not to relate to.

PROS:
Fairly quick read that you may want to read again and again to make sure you get everything.
Extremely relatable, no matter what your perspective is. There’s something for everyone.
Presented without judgement, prejudice or bias. It’s clear this is her thoughts, based on her experiences and you don’t have to agree or disagree, just recognize that you are part of a sisterhood.
There are some FANTASTIC quotes!

CONS:
This is not a memoir, so it jumps around a lot and often doesn’t tell a full story when the highlights are enough to get the point across.
There is no trigger warning and many trigger topics touched upon.

“It’s fair to say that there is and undeclared war against women.”

Isabel Allende is one of my Besties favorite author, so when this popped up in my NetGalley search, I submitted a request immediately. I didn’t know what to expect and I sure was not disappointed! I recommend this book to anyone who’s on a journey to understand more about womanhood, feminism, how your experiences shape your views and interested in seeing other’s perspectives to help shape their own. I could not have picked a better book to start 2021!!!

I give Soul of a Woman a solid: 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This Book is amazing of course. I was actually thinking while I was reading this " Who tells your story." I can't tell you already enough how many times I have recommended an Isabel Allende book. I love that she did a biography I know that she had a complicated life. Her books are amazing full of strong women.

The Soul of a Women by Isabel Allende

From the start declares she is a feminist and not traditionalist such as a dominant traditional subservient daughter. Born in very different times 1942 Isabel Allende sees the injustice going on in life. A male idea would be to talk about justice, never women rights. Pachita Isabel Allende's Mother was worried her daughter would be considered butch for being against machismo. Having to live with a feminist in a patriarchal society.

This ARC was given to me by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I'm so happy to finally read a bio.