Play Book Tag discussion

Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy - 3 stars - My Review

Set in Athens, three people from very different backgrounds meet and form a rather strange friendship. Rebecca is a French flight attendant, Henry is a British archeologist, and George is an American expert in ancient languages. Rebecca has a brief affair with George but is involved primarily with Henry. A death occurs and it becomes a book about grief.

I was interested in the first third of the story and had no idea it would shift so abruptly. The writing is beautiful in places, but the narrative is choppy, as it flashes back and forth frequently and not in a way that flows well. In the middle it switches formats from straight text to visuals of typewritten letters that are difficult to decipher.

I did not care for the portion of the book that is told in second person – this voice is very difficult to do well, and, for me, it fails here. I think this book is supposed to be about the randomness of life, but it comes across as…well, too random. Grief is another theme, and it is difficult to pull off a book about grief. The storyline in this book did not work well for me, but I would read another book by this author. I much preferred Van Booy’s The Illusion of Separateness.