Review: Big Little Lies (by Liane Moriarty)

My Rating: 4.5 stars

I’ve read several of Liane Moriarty’s books (including her newest release) and I’ve got to say that Big Little Lies is my favorite so far.  I’ve actually had this book on my TBR for quite some time and honestly thought about reading it back when the award-winning adaptation came out several years ago, but never got around to it.  So why am I reading this now then, in the middle of a busy reading summer when my TBR is already teetering to the point of toppling?  The answer is simple: because Moriarity finally decided to write a sequel to Big Little Lies – a rare move for her, as she has said herself in multiple interviews that she does not write sequels – which I really want to read but since I have a rule about not reading sequels until I’ve read the first book, I scrambled to slot this one in so I could finish it before the sequel comes out next month (and oh, it definitely helped that my audiobook hold from the library just happened to come through as well).  I may be late to the party with this book, but that’s okay because all the fun I had at said party all but made up for the lateness!

As many other readers already mentioned, this was a charming, delightful, hugely entertaining read that balanced the serious and the lighthearted in a seamless way.  The story was equal parts compelling and gripping, with a brilliantly crafted structure where the investigation into a mysterious death at a school trivia night (complete with juicy commentary and revelations from various parties) is interspersed with the follies and foibles that three suburban moms must navigate through as they go about their respective lives and relationships.  Moriarty was spot-on with the various character depictions and interactions – the petty quarrels and jealousies between the parents, the schoolyard scandals and controversies, the never-ending rumor mill where gossip spreads like wildfire and people are delight in finding out about other people’s miseries, the drama and politics and people who are constantly trying to “one-up” each other, etc. – the list goes on and on.  My favorite though is seeing how misguided the parents often are in thinking they know what’s best for their kids, only for them to end up being taught a lesson or two by their precociously adorable kindergarteners (speaking of which, out of all the kiddos in the story, I found Ziggy to be the most endearing).  Yes, the adults in the story do sometimes act more childishly than their kids, but that’s how people are in real life too (speaking for myself, I know I’ve definitely had those moments).

One of the things Moriarty does brilliantly in this story is juxtaposing the “silly and ridiculous” (i.e.: all the petty rivalries between the parents) with the “serious and heavy” (i.e. domestic abuse, bullying, death) and being able to write about both with a delicate balance of heart and humor.  With Moriarty’s other books, I don’t usually feel much emotional pull, but this one turned out to be an emotional roller coaster – there were moments where I laughed so hard to the point of tears, while other times, I felt sad and angry (and sometimes indignant) at what some of the characters had to endure; there were still other moments where I couldn’t help rolling my eyes (sometimes into the back of my skull, it felt like) at the ridiculous pettiness and childishly dramatic antics of some of the parents, yet the next moment, I would be moved by the sweet innocence of the kindergarteners who seem to understand more about what it means to treat people with kindness and respect than the adults do.

Moriarty covers so much ground in this book, yet it never felt overwhelming.  As I mentioned earlier, I listened to the audiobook, which was 16 hours, but it honestly didn’t feel that long because the story was so immersive and engrossing – so much so that I often found myself listening for hours on end because I couldn’t wait to find out what happens next. Of course, it also helped that the audiobook narrator did a good job with the voice work – especially her use of distinct intonations for each of the characters, clearly differentiating the adults from the children – which made this a particularly immersive experience on audio.

As much as I enjoyed this, I couldn’t give it 5 stars because it did have some flaws, not to mention some really ‘over the top bordering on absurd’ characters as well as a fair share of ridiculous ‘eye-roll worthy’ (though at the same time downright hilarious) moments – but honestly, that’s what made this book such a fun (and funny) read! 

I’m not sure what Moriarty has in store for us with the sequel but the high standards she set with this book will be hard to surpass, that’s for sure.  I guess I will find out next month when my pre-order Big Little Truths arrives!

Review: Euphoria (by Lily King)

My Rating: 4 stars

This is my second Lily King novel (which I'm reading for book club) and while I definitely liked it, I didn't love it as much as  her newest novel Writers and Lovers, which I read earlier this year and loved.  Of course, this one was beautifully written, with breathtaking, evocative prose that flowed seamlessly, which is a writing style I've come to expect from Lily King.   With that said though, this was actually a bit of a tedious read for me, especially the first half of it, mostly because I found it difficult to engage with the subject matter (which I'll get into later).

The story revolves around three talented anthropologists — Nell Stone, Schuyler Fenwick (Fen), and Andrew Bankson — who spend much of their time living among the tribes of the South Pacific (along the Sepik River in New Guinea) in order to research them.  Nell has already established a name for herself in the field, having written a book that was well-received and made her famous.  Her husband Fen is intelligent but has an aggressive personality, which gets further aggravated as he feels more and more overshadowed by his wife's success and by her magnetic personality.  Bankson is a fellow anthropologist studying the Kiona tribe along the River, and after being rescued from the brink of suicide by the couple, he becomes drawn to them.  Over the course of the few months they spend together, their collective brilliance helps them produce their best work (which only becomes apparent later), but at the same time, they develop an intimate yet fiery relationship that ends up spiraling out of control and ultimately threatens to consume them.

As I mentioned earlier, it was hard for me to get into the story at first, mostly because I had no interest whatsoever in anthropology (or any of the sciences for that matter). With Lily King's writing here so incredibly atmospheric, plus the research was so well-done, there were many detailed descriptions that honestly ended up going a bit over my head.  To this point, I guess it also didn't really help that much of the story was the "slow burn" type where the focus was more on character than plot (though actually these are usually the types of stories I love).  So in a sense, I technically only truly engaged with the story a little after the halfway mark when things started actually happening.  Having said that, I couldn't put the book down after that and pretty much read through to the end in one sitting.

Lily King states in her Author's Note that this story was inspired by Margaret Mead and a moment described in a 1984 biography the famous anthropologist, but the story itself is a completely different one and does not in any way mirror Mead's real life experiences.  Even so, after I finished reading this book, I was fascinated enough with the story that I couldn't help doing further research of my own and looking up some information about Mead so I could better understand the inspiration behind the scenes. For me, this is the beauty of historical fiction, especially the well-written kind, where the story impacts me in such a way that I feel compelled to do follow up reading and/or research on my own.  

Overall, I definitely enjoyed this one, as I found the writing enthralling and though a word of warning that there are some graphic, explicit descriptions in here that might be a turn off for some.  For me personally, I love the way Lily King writes and so the overall experience was well worth the effort, despite a few uncomfortable scenes here and there.  King actually has a new short story collection out this month, which I can't wait to get my hands on (it's been pre-ordered and should arrive at the end of this month).  I also intend to continue exploring her backlist, which will take some time, but I know will be well worth the effort.

Review: The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited (by Louisa Lim)

My Rating:  4.5 stars

June 4^th, 1989.  This is a date that has been seared into my memory for the past 30 years – a date that, being from Hong Kong, I have an obligation never to forget.  It doesn't matter that my family immigrated to the U.S. when I was barely old enough to talk, or that I was only 11 years old when the events of June 4^th took place, or that I was thousands of miles away, living and growing up in Los Angeles and barely even remembered what Hong Kong looked like at that time, let alone China, having never set foot in the country up to that point.

I first learned about the Tiananmen Square Massacre (which is referred to euphemistically as 'the June 4th Incident' in the Chinese-speaking part of the world) in my elementary school classroom.  We had been watching a usually pre-recorded news snippet recapping recent world events (a practice that was part of our regular curriculum at the time) and near the tail-end of it, the breaking news came in about the situation unfolding in China, where students from various universities had been protesting for weeks at Tiananmen Square, the heart of the country's capital in Beijing.  At the time, the information was sketchy of course, being that we were thousands of miles away and relying primarily on news feeds transmitted from foreign journalists in China.  While I don't remember the exact content of the news feed at that time, one thing I do remember from that broadcast were the shocked expressions on the faces of both newscasters as they relayed the little information they had, as well as the chaotic scene in the newsroom as everyone scrambled to get more details – to this day, those images have stayed with me.  When I got home, my family was able to fill in the details of what had happened, since our relatives in Hong Kong had already been monitoring the situation as soon as they saw it on the news over there and was relaying the information to us firsthand.   To be honest, I was too young at the time to truly understand the magnitude of what had happened – all I knew was that the situation was very, very bad, as the Communist government in China had resorted to sending in their military with guns and tanks to quash unarmed protesters.  Most of what I remember from that first week was watching program after program where practically every famous celebrity in Hong Kong at the time came out to denounce what the government had done and also, more importantly, mourn all the protesters who had been senselessly killed.  It wasn't until later in the year that I fully understood the significance of the Tiananmen Square Massacre for Hong Kong and why the reaction in the city was as tremendous as it had been for something that hadn't even taken place there:  Hong Kong, a British colony at the time, was scheduled to be handed back over to China on July 1^st, 1997 – a mere 8 years away.  Everyone in Hong Kong was terrified (and rightfully so) of having to soon be under the rule of a government that seemed to have no qualms about killing its own citizens for the mere 'crime' (in their eyes) of disagreeing with the Communist Party's ideology.  It was because of what had happened in Tiananmen that throughout the early 90s, there was a huge surge in emigration out of Hong Kong, as many citizens – especially those who had been the most outspoken against the Mainland government – were determined to get out of the city before the handover.

Many of us from Hong Kong vividly remember the events of June 4^th, yet in the country where the events took place, there is an entire population that does not remember – or, perhaps more appropriately, has chosen to forget.  This is where NPR correspondent Louisa Lim's book The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited comes in.  Her book, which was published back in 2014 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, explores Mainland China's effective "erasure" of the event from not only its history books, but also from the minds of its nearly 1.4 billion citizens.  After that day of bloodshed, Deng Xiaoping and the rest of those in charge at the time were quick to label the Tiananmen protests as "counterrevolutionary turmoil" instigated by "ruffian mobs" whose previous actions of killing a PLA soldier justified the government's use of force in order to "bring stability" back to the country.  Over the past 3 decades, in efforts to maintain this narrative, the Tiananmen Square massacre has been continually downgraded and downplayed by the ruling Communist Party. As Lim writes in her book, "Deng's 'counterrevolutionary turmoil' has morphed over time into plain 'turmoil' and then a 'political storm.' Nowadays, if it is referred to at all, it is often called the 'June 4th incident,' a term notable for its blandness."  Indeed, in today's China, most of the younger generation do not know about Tiananmen while many of the older generation who lived through it have gone to great lengths to protect their offspring from knowledge of this past history for the sake of their futures.  One of the tactics that has made this enforced collective amnesia so "successful" for the Chinese government was the decision after Tiananmen to concentrate efforts on economic reform, thereby opening up a path to wealth and prosperity for millions of its citizens — the focus became making as much money as possible and with that money, buying up every material good that had previously been out of reach, effectively lifting many of its citizens, especially in the urban areas, from "grinding poverty to unimaginable wealth."  Today, China is an economic superpower, second only to the United States in terms of economic might and wealth.  In the many interviews she did as part of her research for this book, Lim expressed that she seemed to encounter a common mindset amongst many of China's youth today — when asked about Tiananmen, the few who knew about it often chose the path of willful ignorance, citing the "pointlessness" in mentioning the past when things were going so well for them currently….why rock the boat and bring trouble upon themselves when they can ignore the past and continue to enjoy the life that they have now?  To me though, what was more heartbreaking than China's citizens deliberately forgetting Tiananmen was the fact that, as Lim asserts in her book, many of the young Chinese who do know about Tiananmen "see the country's prosperity as a post-facto justification for the crackdown."  

Even with my knowledge of the Tiananmen events, reading Lim's book was still an eye-opener for me, especially in its portraits of those whose lives were impacted by what had happened in one way or another.  I was especially moved by the profile of the Tiananmen Mothers -- two elderly women whose sons were killed during the Tiananmen protests over a quarter century ago, yet to this day, they are not allowed to mourn their sons publicly and at times, not even privately.  The mission of the grassroots organization that they formed alongside others whose relatives were killed in Tiananmen is summed up in 3 words: truth, compensation, and accountability.  Over the years, they have been able to painstakingly put together a list that confirms the identities of more than 200 victims killed in the crackdown.  Despite decades of continual harassment and monitoring from the government, as well as being forced to "disappear" every year whenever the anniversary rolls around, the Tiananmen Mothers have continued to remain relentless in their mission to keep the memory of Tiananmen alive.

 Today, the only place on Chinese soil where the Tiananmen massacre can be publicly commemorated is Hong Kong, where the "one country, two systems" pledge given by Mainland China during the handover guaranteed its citizens continued autonomy and freedoms for 50 years.  Every June 4th, students in Hong Kong organize a huge rally attended by tens of thousands and also hold a symbolic 64-hour hunger strike in honor of the victims.  With this year being the 30th anniversary, commemoration events were especially poignant, with record numbers of Hong Kongers attending the events (though no doubt that the timing of the anniversary date to other recent spats with the HKSAR government also drove up the number of people in attendance who view Tiananmen in a more symbolic light, of their own freedoms being slowly eroded).   It is no coincidence that in the 22 years since the handover, the relations between Hong Kong and the Mainland have continued to be strained — even more so as Hong Kongers feel that more and more of their rights and freedoms (core tenants of the city's existence), are being encroached upon.  In fact, it is not lost on me that as I am writing this review, there is yet another protest about a matter related to Mainland rule (the extradition law that has been heatedly contested the past few months) going on in Hong Kong currently and that, once again, just like the 2 major protests before it (the Mongkok riots from 2016 and the larger scale Occupy movement prior to that in 2014), the protests in certain areas have escalated into a violent scuffle between protesters and the local police.   This seems to be the way of life there now -- Hong Kong used to be one of the safest cities in the world, but over the past 10 years alone, things have changed drastically.  When I returned to HK several years ago to visit relatives, I was shocked to discover a city that I no longer recognized, a city where everyone seemed to be constantly on guard, a city where people seem to have taken on a consistently hostile attitude toward everyone and everything, a city that seems to constantly be in a state of unrest and that I no longer feel comfortable or safe in.   

What happened in Tiananmen 30 years ago continue to have a lasting impact on not just China, but also Hong Kong as well as many Chinese-speaking communities around the world.  Yet, an entire nation has chosen to deliberately suppress memories of that day and wipe its existence from the annals of history.  This is why books such as Louisa Lim's are so necessary, even if only to serve as a reminder that history forgotten is likely to be repeated.  To this point, one of the most powerful passages from the book that sums up why many of us Chinese who live outside of Mainland China's borders feel it is an obligation for us to remember the events of June 4th:  "Memory is dangerous in a country that was built to function on national amnesia. A single act of public remembrance might expose the frailty of the state's carefully constructed edifice of accepted history, scaffolded into place over a generation and kept aloft by a brittle structure of strict censorship, blatant falsehood, and willful forgetting."

This book (and others like it) are important, not just to help us understand history, but also to help us remember it.  And while I'm not going to bank on those who have "forgotten" about Tiananmen (whether willfully or otherwise) to read this book and suddenly "remember," I do hope that for others who may not have known in the first place, books like this one help enlighten.

Review: You Should Have Known (by Jean Hanff Korelitz)

My Rating: 3 stars

I decided to take a little bit of a detour from the ARCs and library books that I’ve been reading to squeeze in this buddy read with one of my good friends.  She was interested in reading this because she had heard that the book would be the basis for an upcoming HBO mini-series adaptation starring Nicole Kidman -- who is one of her favorite actresses -- and being the “informed watcher” that my friend is, she wanted to understand the backstory first so that she will be prepared when the series actually comes out (I’m actually the exact same way when it comes to TV series and movies, which is one reason why we’re such good friends, lol). 

This is a novel that actually came out back in 2014 -- the story revolves around Grace Reinhart Sachs, a marriage therapist in New York City who seems to have the perfect life, with a smart and handsome husband (Jonathan) who is a respected doctor at one of the city’s biggest medical establishments and a teenage son (Henry) who is musically gifted, intelligent, and is a model student.  In addition to living among the upper echelons of New York high society, Grace also has a forthcoming book that is the culmination of her career experience and quite possibly could make her one of the most sought after therapists in the city.   One day, when tragedy strikes the family of a boy at her son’s school and Grace’s husband coincidentally goes missing around the same time, the perfect life that Grace had built for herself threatens to unravel right before her eyes.  But the physical turmoil that she goes through pales in comparisons to the turmoil in her mind and in her heart, and soon, the question becomes whether she will be able to maintain her sanity and rebuild her life.

My first reaction after reading this book is that, at 400+ pages, it was way longer than it really needed to be.  I normally don’t have a problem with big books like this but this particular one felt especially long due to the way it was structured.  The first two-thirds of the book felt really slow and dragged out, mostly because the story would go off on various tangents every few pages, to the point that one simple scene could take an entire chapter to play out.  Not only that, whenever there was dialogue between characters, it was almost always interrupted by Grace’s personal thoughts and memories (the narrative is told from Grace’s perspective) – so a conversation that might be 4 or 5 lines of dialogue, something that would take up at most a quarter of a page let’s say, ends up spanning over 20 to 30 pages.  There was also a lot of “describing” of minutiae (for instance, several pages describing Grace’s office, from the color of her couch to the paintings on the wall and the backstory on both), details that I felt weren’t really necessary in advancing the plot and mostly made the story more tedious to read.  Halfway through the book, I started to ask myself what the point of the story was, as plot-wise, nothing significant had happened – it was mostly pages and pages of Grace’s thoughts and the tangents she goes off on when someone says something that triggers a particular memory for her.  Interestingly enough, in the last third or so of the book, the style seemed to shift in that the story went from slow and drawn out to very fast-paced, with one thing happening after another – it was almost as if the last third of the book was written by someone else entirely and not the same person who wrote the first two-thirds.  I felt like the story was told in a very “roundabout” way, which made it a bit hard to follow and also exhaustive to read.

With all of that said though, the reason I rated this 3 stars and not lower (technically I’m between 3 and 3.5 stars on this one) is because, despite the convoluted structure, the way the story was written made me feel compelled to keep reading and to find out whether Grace would be able to put the pieces of her life back together.   Character development-wise, I actually felt the author did a good job with the main character Grace in that, by letting us (the readers) into her mind and making us experience first-hand the mental and psychological breakdown that she endures as the result of her carefully-manufactured world collapsing around her, it presented an interesting, thought-provoking commentary about relationships as well as human behavior.  Basically, I liked the premise of the story overall and even felt some sections were cleverly written (especially the parts that subtly juxtaposed what was happening to Grace with the advice that she was giving to her clients), but I wasn’t a fan of the story’s structure or its execution.  When it comes to books, I’m really big on the “experience” of reading a book and for me, this one was a bit of a struggle, though I did get some food-for-thought out of it so in that sense, it was a worthwhile read.

Tying the book back to the TV series adaptation mentioned at the beginning of this review – in reading what is out there so far about the series, one thing I found interesting is that there seem to be characters in the series that were not actually in the book.  Also, in addition to Nicole Kidman taking on the role of Grace Sachs, they also cast Hugh Grant in the role of her husband Jonathan – this is significant because in the book, Jonathan is a character that is only talked about but never actually appears…yet in the series, it seems that Jonathan as a character will have more of a presence than he did in the book.  Both of these things lead me to wonder just how “faithful” this adaptation will be to the book -- but since the series is still in the works right now, I will withhold further judgement until the filming is actually completed and the series is released.

Overall, I feel this book is highly readable, but for the right audience.  It does give some interesting insight on relationships, but I think the length of the book and the convoluted way it was written will probably deter some folks from picking this one up.  I was actually tempted to abandon this one myself during the parts that I felt were especially slow, but of course I continued with it and it does pick up pace near the end.  The reviews for this book seem to be a mixed bag so it’s probably a good idea to check out both the highly rated and lower rated ones to get a better feel for what to expect.

Review: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (by Gabrielle Zevin)

My Rating: 4 stars

Charming.  Sweet.  Sad.  Funny. Heartwarming.  Heartbreaking.  These are the first words that came to my mind when I finished reading Gabrielle Zevin's delightful gem of a book The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.  I had actually bought the paperback version of this book several years ago (the Target Book Club version, complete with a special letter from the author and a question/answer session in the back), but never got around to reading it due to life getting in the way.  It wasn't until this year when I decided to participate in an A to Z author challenge on Goodreads and I needed to find a book to fill the "Z" author slot that I found the perfect opportunity to finally read this book.  I'm glad I did, as I ended up really really enjoying this wonderful little story about a curmudgeonly middle-aged bookseller named A.J. Fikry whose life changes dramatically when he decides to open up his heart and let love in its different forms enter it.  I found it difficult not to be charmed by the characters in the story and drawn to them in a personal way, as though I were reading about old friends I hadn't seen in awhile.  I loved the Fikry family, loved all their quirks and eccentricities, but most of all, loved their unbridled affinity for books and reading.  This was truly a "bookish" family in every sense of the word and I wanted nothing more than to be able to spend more time with them and hear their thoughts on books and of course life itself.  And herein lies my one little complaint about an otherwise wonderful book:  as a reader, the time I got to spend with A.J., Amelia, and Maya was way too short – some of the events went by way too quickly and I felt as though I had missed something (i.e. I was reading about Maya as a toddler and then a few pages later she was a grown teenager – I felt like I missed a huge chunk of her life), that I was somehow shortchanged a bit by not getting to share in parts of their lives that were quite significant….goes to show just how invested I was in the characters and the story. 

To be honest, I had actually never heard of this book or its author back when I bought this 3 years ago.  What compelled me to pick out this particular book amongst the rows and rows of choices at the store was, quite simply, because I saw on the book jacket that this would be about a bookseller and his book store.  Though this book turned out to be much more than just a story about a bookseller and his books (it was also very much about the power of love, redemption, unconventional relationships, the impact of technology, writing and its close link to reading, etc.), the book lover in me couldn't help losing myself in the fictional book world that Zevin had created in the form of Island Books, which was also A.J.'s home.  The fact that I was also familiar with most of the titles and authors mentioned in the story made reading this book an extra special experience for me!  It was a lot of fun hearing various characters' takes on certain books, especially A.J.'s – I didn't agree with his opinion at times but that was fine, as it didn't take away from the enjoyment of the story at all.  The writing was simple, yet profound – easy to understand and easy to connect with, yet not without its fair share of meaningful quips and dialogue that put me in a reflective mood at times. 

Overall a delightful book, one that will definitely be going on my favorites shelf!  Highly recommended and a definite must-read for all book lovers!  

Review: All the Light We Cannot See (by Anthony Doerr)

My Rating:  5 stars

I find this review a bit difficult to write because honestly, I don’t know where to start!  All the Light We Cannot See is like no other book that I’ve read before. On its surface, this book is about a young German boy with a talent for fixing radios and a blind French girl who possesses a curiosity and courage way beyond her years – both thrown helplessly into a world torn apart by war and devastation and the impact this has on their lives. But this book is so much more than that! It is about survival, love, courage, family, friendship, etc but on a deeper level, it is also a "study" on human nature and what it means to "do what is expected" versus "do what is right."

The author Anthony Doerr has a masterful way with words – the richness in detail with which he describes every character / event / scene in the book paints a vivid picture of what life was like in the midst of war, yet he does so in a manner that does not take away from the story itself. He does not bog the story down with long, tedious paragraphs or pages and pages of detailed description that make readers like me want to just skip ahead to the actual story and not bother with the details. Instead, he uses brevity as a powerful tool – in just a few words, short phrases, sometimes not even complete sentences, he is able to bring to life not only his characters and the situations they encounter, but also draw the reader into their world to experience it for ourselves. As I was reading, I actually felt like I was being transported back to that time period (mid 1930s to 1940s), walking alongside the characters, seeing what they were seeing, feeling what they were feeling. The atrocities of war described in the book were very harsh and very real, despite this being a work of fiction. I actually winced during some of the parts where an atrocity was being described and had to set the book aside for a few minutes to calm myself. I’ve read other books in the past about his time period, about World War II and the atrocities of war, but none of those books had the impact this one did. Thinking about it now, I realize why: those books either use WWII merely as a backdrop without going into much detail or if they do, the events are portrayed in a way that makes it feel like a story or a recounting of history – as a reader, you are told what happened during that time period but don’t really feel a connection to it. This book, in its uniqueness, actually makes you LIVE that history rather than just read about it.

The other unique aspect to this book was the storyline involving the cursed stone, which brought an unexpected element of suspense that still blended in perfectly with the rest of the story. In the hands of a less capable author, incorporating this part of the story might ruin the book entirely, but with Doerr, this is definitely not the case – he is consistent with the details as well as the storytelling and incorporates this arc seamlessly throughout the book. I found myself at the edge of my seat at certain points wanting to find out what happens next -- whether the stone would be found, whether certain characters would get caught, etc. I enjoyed this part of the book immensely!

My only “complaint” about this book would be in its structure, as the story is told in different timeframes and switches back and forth after every couple chapters. This interrupted the flow a bit and did slow me down at times when reading, since I had to go back and re-read certain parts in order to remember where the previous timeframe left off. It also caused a little bit of confusion for me initially with some of the characters who were already part of the story when the book opens but then are introduced for the first time when things switch back to the earlier timeframe, then it picks up with what happens to that character from the later timeframe when it switches again. Not a show-stopper by any means of course, but I think the book would’ve been easier to get through if it didn’t switch back and forth. I'm pretty sure there was significance to structuring the book this way but unfortunately it was lost on me.

Despite this long review that I just wrote, I actually don’t feel like I did this book any justice. In fact, no review can do this book much justice because it is a book that can’t just be “described” -- you basically have to read and experience it for yourself. For me personally, I loved this book and I know this is a story that will stay with me for a long time to come. I can totally see why this book won a Pulitzer Prize – absolutely well-deserved!

(Read in January 2017)