Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for giving me the opportunity to read a digital advanced copy.

Five star read for me.

Beautifully written.

Isabel Allende’s novel “The Wind Knows My Name” interweaves two stories of survivors of human tragedies, the Holocaust and immigration into the US escaping violence in El Salvador. Both stories deal with children separated from their parents and the challenges faced by each child until they eventually find their place and a new life. While the story highlighted man’s inhumanity to man it also was hopeful as strangers stepped up to help these children.

The overall story and many of the characters captured my interest, however, I felt there were too many side stories that distracted from the continuity of the book. Isabel Allende is a great story teller but this book wasn’t her best in my opinion.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the providing an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I love Isabel Allende's books, and have a preference for the historical fiction. The Wind Knows My Name did not disappoint. The book moves between multiple timelines and narrators, from Samuel Adler, a young Jewish child in Nazi Germany escaping after Kristallnacht and leaving behind everything he knows, to Leticia and Selena, who escape from El Salvador at different times to the U.S., and Anita, a young blind refugee who has found her own ways of escaping. All the characters come together in a satisfying way, connected by their trauma and their hope.

🌺This book has beautiful and heart wrenching themes; immigration and loss. Allende did a great job at portraying and informing the reader regarding immigration issues we are still facing today. There are so many people that leave their country due to war, violence, and increasing danger and the book portrays various families that experience that. Mostly, I liked how Allende shows the reader the difficulty of being an immigrant in this country. The emotional toll it takes on a person, especially children. Being removed from everything and everyone you know is difficult and it shapes the person for the rest of their lives.

🌺I didn’t give this book a 5 ⭐️ rating because I was left wanting to know more about each character. The book gives the reader a great crash course on issues of immigration but I wanted more character development. I wanted to know more about Nadine and Samuel’s relationship and life. I wanted to understand more about Frank and his background. Overall, I feel like something was missing.

"Empathy is the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person." (Heinz Kohut)

I sometimes wonder if this is a lost art in some respect in today's world. But I will continue to believe that goodness still resides in the hearts of many......many who will step beyond themselves, even into dangerous situations, to care for and to rescue others from the sins of humanity.

Isabel Allende is a profound storyteller. She is simply gifted when it comes to portraying characters on both sides of Wicked vs. Good. In The Wind Knows My Name she will spread this story far and wide in order to give the reader a different perspective in regard to life's circumstances. Decisions cast upon innocent individuals caught up within the demands of power and within the tightening corridors of wrongful judgments.

We begin in November of 1938 in Vienna, a city of refined beauty, that will become stained by Nazi intimidation and Gestapo oppression. We'll meet the Adler family who will be caught up in the brutality against Jews.
The initial story is heart-wrenching with their child, Samuel, just six years old and a violin prodigy. Samuel will find himself involved in the Kindertransport Program sending Jewish children to England for safety. People stepping forward to help others. We'll follow Samuel's journey into adulthood.

Then the pendulum swings into more modern times into the life of Anita Diaz, a blind girl from El Salvador who was separated from her mother, Marisol, at the border. Selena Duran of the Magnolia Project recruits Frank Angileri, a successful New York lawyer, to stand up for Anita in the search for Marisol and clarifying the legal aspects of Anita staying in the United States. Again, individuals who pursue the betterment of others.

The Wind Knows My Name is a heavily packed read. Allende's desire is to create parallels between the different eras and the still rampant disregard of the dignity and rights of individuals to exist in peace. There were so many avenues to venture down. The numbers of characters keep expanding page by page. The story of Samuel would have been more than adequate material for one novel in itself. Anita's story could have been a volume alone. So much ample material to sort through. This is not, in all honesty, my favorite of all the books I've read by this stellar author.

And yet, it mightily deserves to be read and to be savored for its content and its eye-opening scenarios into the darkness and into the potential of light from human beings.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Random House (Ballantine Books) and to the talented Isabel Allende for the opportunity.

Isabel Allende is one of my favorite authors. I am a fan of her sweeping, epic novels which all feature strong and courageous women, as well as her advocacy of women's rights. I was excited to see this new book by her and grabbed it immediately.

The Description:
Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler was six years old when his father disappeared during Kristallnacht—the night their family lost everything. Samuel’s mother secured a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to the United Kingdom, which he boarded alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz, a blind seven-year-old girl, and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. However, their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination she created with her sister back home.

Anita’s case is assigned to Selena Duran, a young social worker who enlists the help of a promising lawyer from one of San Francisco’s top law firms. Together they discover that Anita has another family member in the United States: Leticia Cordero, who is employed at the home of now eighty-six-year-old Samuel Adler, linking these two lives.

Spanning time and place, The Wind Knows My Name is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.

My Thoughts:
This is a heart-wrenching novel dealing with immigrants rights, love, loss, hope and most of all, humanity.

The story began in Vienna, 1938 where six-year-old Samuel Adler was forced to leave on the Kindertransport from Vienna to England without his parents during the Holocaust. He eventually was placed with a Quaker couple, but his original family was lost. I was heart-broken for Samuel.

My heart broke again for seven-year-old, nearly blind Anita and her mother. They were at a hospital I was on edge during Anita and her mother's flight from El Salvador to the United States, a journey that was fraught with hardship. Then they were faced with Trumps's family separation policy which had just gone into effect in the United States. Then I rooted for Selena in her quest to help Anita.

The timelines collide and I began to feel some hope for Anita's future as Selena teams up with Frank, a young attorney.

I highly recommend this book for those who like journeys of courage. Thanks to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine through Netgalley for an advance copy. This book will be published on June 6, 2023.

I could not finish enough of this book to be able to leave a comprehensive review, but I hope it finds its audience and I am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

The newest novel from Isabel Allende stretches from Nazi Europe to present day, examining families separated from each other. I was expecting more back and forth early on, but it really dives into Samuel's life for a while. Fans of Allende's previous books will find similar writing here and should enjoy it.

Poignant story about a small child separated from her mother by US iimmigration, a woman devoted to helping young refuges and a lawyer looking for meaning and how their lives intertwine.

The Wind Knows My Name, the prolific Isabel Allende's latest book, offers both too much and too little. The book tells ultimately interconnected stories of survivors of mass human tragedies, including the Holocaust and the current US immigration issue. The events are well-known and so much is left unsaid, especially about the Holocaust. While the stories are not exactly parallel, they tell of hardships, of childhood losses, of parental sacrifices, the help of strangers, and ultimately finding ways to live without the past overwhelming the future. To this reader, Allende tells too much of the stories without ever letting us penetrate the characters beneath their skins. I empathized with the characters but never really felt their pain. With more concise editing of the stories, there would have been plenty of room to expand the characters themselves. Instead, I felt as if I was floating in the winds above what was happening rather than living with the characters as they struggled with their enormous hardships and burdens.,

4.5/5

I swear Allende puts most authors that attempt a story like this to shame. She has a knack for telling stories that involve fascinating characters put into fascinating eras and events. How does she do this so well? I don’t know and I don’t care. I just relish it.

Multigenerational books are such a feat, Allende does such a wonderful job weaving together these lives into one masterful story. I loved it. She is such a delight and writes with such elegance.

I had previously read and loved Violeta by Isabel Allende, but this one didn't capture my attention. There were too many characters and they weren't super well-developed.

Isabel Allende is one of my favorite authors. "The House of the Spirits," "A Long Petal of the Sea," and "Violeta" were all five star reads for me. Unfortunately, I can't place Allende's latest work, "The Wind Knows My Name" amongst my favorites. I loved the premise of the book; the parallels between the Jewish people in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s and the refugee crisis in South and Central America are spot on. I liked how the separate stories of the characters eventually came together. However, this booked lacked the character development and descriptive writing that would have made the story come alive, There was too much telling and not enough showing. I think this book had a lot of potential to be great, but it didn't quite get there.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the privilege of reading an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I look forward to Allende's next book!

I have read several books by Ms. Allende and enjoyed everyone. She always takes you on a journey. This one was no different. I became invested in all the characters, she brings in multiple life stories of several characters and does a wonderful background presentation so we know how they got to where they are. I especially loved Samuel, he went through so much at a young age.

I would not consider this a fast paced page burner, it is more a sit back, relax and enjoy the ride kind of story.

I received an ARC from Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine and NetGalley for my unbiased review – This one comes in with 4 stars.

5.0 stars

Thank you to Isabel Allende, Ballantine Books, and NetGallery for the opportunity to read this book!

Full disclosure, I have only recently discovered Isabel Allende, and her books are masterpieces. I don't know how I missed reading her in high school or college, but I am glad I found her books when I did!! So of course, The Wind Knows My Name is another masterpiece!!

It is told in two primary timelines - the story of Samuel in Austria/England/USA as a child refugee from WWII and Anita in El Salvador/Arizona/California as a child refugee from the violence in El Salvador. The frightening part is that the stories are similar, violent, and still happening after almost 100 years. Obviously, we have NOT learned from the past and our history!!

It is an extremely powerful book. It is shameful, horrifying, and convicting that we as a country allow the same things to happen over and over again. The comparison between El Salvador and Austria is on point!

It is an amazing book - I read it in one day. The character development, storyline, and beautiful Allende writing is perfect.

HIGHLY recommend (also, ANY book by Isabel Allende)

Isabel Allende's best work yet! I will admit to confusion when the start of the book is the tale of Samuel and his escape from Austria on a Kindertransport train. The importance of this historical event of childhood trauma is resolved later in the book. But then, the book presents a realistic portrayal of the horrendous policy of separating families at the Southern US border. Ms. Allende carefully crafts a narrative, portraying the violence that drives those seeking asylum and the trauma faced by the children. The publisher's review sums it up best, "Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming." Well done Ms. Allende.

I have loved previous novels by this author, but this one just didn’t grab me. I found the characters a bit formulaic and too good to be true. I struggled to get through this novel.

Many thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this wonderful book in advance of publication.

I just finished reading this a few moments ago and am full of emotion. The way Isabel Allende wrote this story was so beautiful even as I was grasping the connections between the various POVs in the beginning of the book. It is a multi-generational story across different families and perspectives but all at once a single story about a very young girl separated from her mother shortly after migrating to the US from El Salvador just prior to the COVID pandemic. As soon as the various POVs started to converge, I was immediately invested in how little Anita would navigate her world without knowing if her mother would be found. I am usually not a multi-POV fan but this was done spectacularly.

In 2019 a police officer in El Salvador shot Marisol, who fled with her seven-year-old, blind daughter Anita knowing he would kill her if she stayed. After a difficult trip to the United States, she and Anita were forcibly separated at the border, and she was deported. Selena, a Latina social worker, took a personal interest in Anita. Though she had been trying for years to reunite separated children it had proven difficult because the U.S. didn’t keep good records of where children were sent. She was determined to find Anita’s mother.

In 1938 six-year-old Samuel was a violin prodigy in Vienna, but everything changed on Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass. That night his father was beaten and sent to a concentration camp, and his mother put him on a kindertransport to England thinking it would be a short separation. A few years later Samuel found out his parents, grandmother and aunt had all been murdered in the concentration camps. As the years passed music was the only thing that kept him going. The day he met Anita, everything changed.

Anita, Samuel, Selena, and others tell their interwoven stories which recount how separation from their parents affects children, but also splices in the poverty and murders migrants are forced to flee on their desperate journeys to the United States. “The wind knows my name” educates, saddens, but also gives hope.

Highly recommended for Adults.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.