Five star book

One of the reasons that I didn't have much to show yesterday was that I spent most of my free time reading a book I had become engrossed in. Having spent most of last year in somewhat of a reading slump, this was a pleasant change of pace. 

What was the book? The City & The City by China Miéville. On my library copy it is listed as science fiction, but that seems a stretch to me. There is also a murder mystery as part of the story, but that was not the part I found most interesting. It was the setting of the boom that I find myself thinking about long after I finished the book. 

The book is set in the current time period and the rest of the world is not any different from our real one. But the specific city (cities?) where the story happens is what makes it interesting. It is a city, or cities, which occupy the same geographical space, but part of them belong to one and part of them belong to the other. It's just divided in half like post war Be Berlin was, but the borders meander around each other across the entire city. So one house on a block might belong to one city while the house next door belongs to the other.

This alone would be interesting, but it becomes even odder. The inhabitants of both cities, from childhood, are taught to "unsee" the other city; to pretty much pretend it isn't there. It sounds odd and fairly unbelievable, but trust me, it works. I found it to be a pretty impressive piece of writing that by the end it felt believable. 

I don't want to give too much away, because figuring out this all works was part of the lure of the book for me. You also need to have a little patience for the first few chapters as you go through the process of figuring it out. It is totally worth it in my opinion. 

It has been a while since I read a book that I would give five stars without any reservation. This is definitely a five star book. I highly recommend it.

From there I moved onto the most recent Louise Penny book, which knew I would find engrossing even before I opened it. That makes two really good books in a row. I'm not sure I had that at all last year.