Reviews - The World and All That It Holds: A Novel

172 reviews for:

The World and All That It Holds: A Novel

God. This book has so much potential and some beautiful moments but it is SO BORING between those bits. The author repeats motifs and phrases so frequently and inelegantly that it takes the reader out of the story. I have no reason to pick this up again. You keep waiting for Pinto to be able to return to Sarajevo or for him to have any control over the events of his life, but it's world war I and he's a gay Bosnian Jew so of course he can't do either of those things! Great characters and often pretty prose but too repetitive and slow-paced for me.

Content Warnings

jenrefiction's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

das737's review against another edition

I really loved the first ~two chapters of this, but the constant time jumps and setting changes were exhausting. Had to bail once they made it out of Tashkent and tons of new characters kept getting cycled in/out with every new chapter. I'd consider finishing at a later date, though.

eunicek82's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

A beautiful love story between 2 soldiers that spans time and distance. The writing is a little difficult to sink into and the foreign language woven in made me wish I had listened to the audio or at least supplemented with audio. However, once I found my rhythm, I found the writing captivating. My quibbles are that I only wanted to be with Pinto and Osman, our main characters, and I found myself a little antsy when we were with side characters. This book also has an epilogue that I felt was completely unnecessary (unless someone can explain what I am missing). The ending before the epilogue was perfection and I’m bummed that it didn’t just end there.

fencewalker's review against another edition

2.0

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

bookishlibrarian's review against another edition

3.0

Rafael Pinto witnesses the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, not knowing that his life is about to be thrown into turmoil. That precipitating event, and his entry into the war, lead to both his greatest joy--a relationship with fellow soldier, Osman--and also a life of struggle and hardship as prisoner, survivor, stateless man, refugee, exile. This is an often brutal and bleak novel, with an undercurrent of love and hope from Pinto's time/memories/visions of Osman and daughter Rahela. (Indeed, I found the father/daughter relationship even more affecting than the love story, though it is in part an extension of Pinto's love for Osman). While I was moved by these glimpses of love and hope, they were overshadowed by the overwhelming despair throughout. The writing was often beautiful, but also often confusing and dense with time jumps, shifting perspectives, and references that passed me by. I have read other books by Hemon, and I prefer his short stories (particularly Love and Obstacles) 0ver his novels.