2017 Reading Challenge discussion

I have so many thoughts about this book, I am not even quite sure where to begin. The writing was good; but, I believe, a bit nuanced for the intended audience. The subject matter is tragic, but the relationships are so clearly defined that it brightens the reality of the topic in a way. I was astounded by how attached I became to the characters. I greatly appreciated the interwoven messages and the inter-generational understandings of complex topics - like war, poverty, wealth, mental health, injustice. It was very well done. A part of me really liked the book and I want to give it a five; but another part of me was consumed so much by the nuanced language and sentence structure, that I just can't - I may have to read it again.

I was a little afraid to pick up this book for this category because although I loved the movie, I've seen a lot of comments where people DNF the novel because it was boring and they couldn't finish it. As I progressed through the book, I found myself sucked right in, the writing flows just beautifully, I got surprisingly attached to the characters and also how certain themes were explored, and even how the narrator would pull us back and forth through time and places to give the reader a full understanding of the context of the time and certain characters. The only thing I though that took a star off the rating for me was how unnecessary I felt some of those chapters - there was too much information that slowed the pace of the novel and I think it could be taken out without any prejudice to the story. But still, at the end I found myself thinking a lot about the story, the time period and other things and this book will stick with me for a while.

Hi Natália,

Thank you so much for your response! I completely agree with your point about the progression in some of the chapters. Definitely added an unnecessary start/stop/start motion to the reading that made me a little sea-sick.
I am really surprised that people DNF the work, while it is a little slow to start, I really wanted to finish it by about a third of the way into reading.