Aided in large part by his new friend Nadia Santos, Alex learns to appreciate the metaphysical mysteries of the native people and loses his attachment to the strictly rational mindset he once relied on. Though narrow-minded and skeptical at first, Alex grows significantly more mature and capable over the course of the novel. When he learns that he’ll have to join his grandmother Kate on her trip to the Amazon, Alex is initially frightened and angry, but once the trip begins, he quickly becomes engaged in his exciting new surroundings and the complex issues surrounding the peoples and environment of the Amazon. He lives with his two sisters, Andrea and Nicole, and his parents, John and Lisa. Alex is a skilled mountain climber and flutist and, until his mother gets sick, he leads a happy and uneventful life. Alex starts out as an average fifteen-year-old from the California coast who “had never felt any great curiosity to explore beyond the safe boundaries of his own existence” (15). Drawing on the strength of the jaguar, the totemic animal Alexander finds within himself, and the eagle, Nadia's spirit guide, both young people are led by the invisible People of the Mist on a thrilling and unforgettable journey to the ultimate discovery.Alex Cold is the novel’s protagonist and the character whose perspective most colors the narrative. Under the dense canopy of the jungle, Alexander is amazed to discover much more than he could have imagined about the hidden worlds of the rain forest. Her uncle was Salvador Allende, the president of Chile. She married at the age of 19 and had two children, Paula and Nicolas. When her parents separated, young Isabel moved with her mother to Chile, where she spent the rest of her childhood. Their mission, along with the others on their team - including a celebrated anthropologist, a local guide and his young daughter Nadia, and a doctor - is to document the legendary Yeti of the Amazon known as the Beast. Isabel Allende was born in 1942 in Lima, Peru, the daughter of a Chilean diplomat. Parting from his family and ill mother, Alexander joins his fearless grandmother, a magazine reporter for International Geographic, on an expedition to the dangerous, remote world of the Amazon.

City of the Beasts begins with the story of Alexander Cold, who is 15 years old and going through a family crisis. A search for the Beast, a Yeti-like creature within the heart of the Amazon, becomes a quest for self-discovery in this young-adult coming-of-age story filled with international adventure, rich mythology, and magical realism from globally celebrated novelist Isabel Allende.įifteen-year-old Alexander Cold has the chance to take the trip of a lifetime. City of the Beasts is the first young adult novel by Chilean-American writer Isabel Allende.

City of the beasts by isabel allende