Another good book

2023 has been a good reading year for fiction so far. All last year I found it difficult to find fiction books that caught my interest and there were extremely few five star books (if any) in what I did read. This year? Completely different.

The last book I finished was Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. I had several people recommend it to me, so when I found a copy at the library I grabbed it. 

Other than knowing it involved multiple story lines, I didn't know much about it. I'm okay with multiple story lines, so that's never a deal breaker. The ancient Greek story of Cloud Cuckoo Land is the connecting thread, though I admit that I was really curious how the author was going to tie everything together as the pieces were so incredibly disparate. 

A word of warning, though. This is not a book with a quick start. It takes a while to get to know the characters and to figure out where each of their individual stories is headed. At one point I even Googled, "Does Cloud Cuckoo Land have a happy ending?" because I wasn't sure I wanted to keep going if the fairly dire trajectories of each story continued. Without spoiling the ending I managed to glance at enough information to make me feel more secure about everyone's fate.

(I will often, when I am overly worried about a character, flip to the end of a book to see if I can see that character's name. I don't read the ending, I just want to know it is safe to continue so I can enjoy the reading experience.) 

About halfway through, right about when I was wondering if I should keep going, the very different story lines start to become connected. And then I was hooked. I plowed through the rest of the book in a fraction of the time it took to read the first half. It was an incredibly satisfying ending and worth every bit of slow going at the front end. Plus, it's a book about the power of story which I always find enjoyable.

So if you are just about through with Project Hail Mary, here is your next book. And if I don't put up a post, it is probably because I'm too engrossed in a book to sit down and write.

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