If Isabel Allende hadn't chosen to alternate between the past and present narratives of Maya's Notebook, the suspense in her 10th novel (not counting her YA books) would have been unbearable.
Maya Vidal is boarding an airplane in San Francisco as the novel opens, bound for Chile with a fresh notebook from her beloved grandmother Nini and an admonition "to write down the monumental stupidities you've committed." At 19, Maya has been lovingly banished to the islands of Chiloé where she can be kept out of trouble--and safe from her pursuers.
Maya's fresh, direct narration is endearing, although her "stupidities" are monumental. Raised by her Chilean Nini and Popo, Maya has overcome her mother's abandonment and her father's neglect. But Popo's death sends Maya into a downward spiral, and she embraces every temptation her Berkeley environment offers until her innate sense kicks in, buttressed by Nini's courageous tenacity.
Maya's story is woven with mysticism, revelations of complex family relationships, spirituality of several stripes and memories of the dark years after Chile's 1973 military coup. Allende's irrepressible humor brightens her journey to self-discovery, and readers will cheer her on as, under the care and gentle tutelage of Nini's old friend Manual Arias and the villagers of Chiloé, she revives physically and emotionally. The story of Maya's recovery, as she takes to the simple challenges of daily tasks and learns to savor small pleasures, alternates with details of the addiction and brutalities of her past--ultimately confirming the young woman's redemption... but not before a thrilling last-chapter twist. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller, Book Passage, San Francisco