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Paula

By: Isabel Allende
Narrated by: Isabel Allende, Cynthia Farrell
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Publisher's summary

“Beautiful and heartrending.... Memoir, autobiography, epicedium, perhaps even some fiction: they are all here, and they are all quite wonderful." (Los Angeles Times)

In this literary classic, New York Times best-selling author Isabel Allende recalls the story of her beloved daughter and her remarkable family’s past.

When her daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, Isabel Allende began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. Bizarre ancestors are introduced; delightful and bitter childhood memories are shared; amazing anecdotes of youthful years are relived, and the most intimate secrets are quietly passed along. Like Allende’s first novel, The House of the Spirits, this powerful memoir is infused with the real, the magical, and the spiritual, creating a haunting, sad, and beautiful tale.

©2012 Isabel Allende (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers
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What listeners say about Paula

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Amazing memoir ❤️ so touching and and heartwarming

Loved everything about this memoir . An incredible life journey by such a brave woman Isabel Allende. I learned so much about Isabel but I learned even more about me 💓

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Enchanting

Beautifully written and captivating. Expertly woven story about love, loss and grief yet it refrained from becoming depressing. You are left with a feeling of hope and gratitude for friends and family.

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4 people found this helpful

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Absolutely brilliant

This is a beautiful story of a mother’s love, family, life, grief and the journey of letting go. Thank you Isabelle. I loved it.

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  • Overall
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The love that remains 

The most beautiful, ending — comforting if you lost someone dear to you. Resistance, confusion, pain, political chaos,, love everything is beautifully intertwined.

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Very Emotional story

As always the author is brilliant and explicit. But the story was a bit chaotic. Understandable since it was written under heart wrenching times.

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Paula

The way she connects the ideas is awesome! I love it and I enjoy every little story within the story. The voice that read it was great for this book.

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Words for the soul

For as long as I have memory I’ve known about this book, but I’ve prolonged reading this because I wanted to avoid feeling too much. I knew Paula died, and thus, not wanted to read something with such a sad ending.
I’m glad that I decided to listen to it.

For the first part of the book you can feel the hope Isabel has towards the recovery of Paula, and she intertwines the story of her life, her youth. And the second part when she knows Paula won’t wake up, you can se how she gradually learns to let go, and she tells you her struggles of adult life.

I just loved it.

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7 people found this helpful

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Who else?

Who else but Isabel Allende can be create beauty and magic from sorrow? She shows us a new way to grieve and a new way to live.

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My favorite book of all time!

I’ve read this book a few times, and now I have listened to it. Isabel Allende is an amazing writer, and I’m so grateful that she continues to write novels.

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6 people found this helpful

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a wonderful book

if you have loved Isabel Allende books, you simply must read this one!!! it's great!!!!

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