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adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-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
thanks for the emotional damage, I'm gonna cry now.
thanks to netgalley, the author, and the publisher for the ARC ❤️
thanks to netgalley, the author, and the publisher for the ARC ❤️
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The World and All That It Holds by Aleksandar Hemon (The Lazarus Project) is brutal, beautiful and an absolute masterpiece. I was riveted by the audiobook, the narration of which was expertly done and very authentic to the voice and tone of this piece. There are plenty of trigger warnings that would normally perhaps prevent me from picking this book up (lots of wartime violence--gore, torture, and sexual assault) but it is part of the reality of this world in the backdrop of the exceptionally tender and raw love story between the two MCs. It was difficult emotionally at times but worth it. A powerfully human novel that will stay with me a very long time. Thank you to MacMillan audio for the advanced listening copy.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was floored by this book. Told over the course of 35 years, this is the story of an epic love between a Jewish man and a Muslim man from Sarajevo set against the backdrop of the first half of the 20th century, covering WWI, its aftermath, and WWII. This book is a lyrical and deeply moving portrait of war, trauma, grief, displacement, and Jewish longing. As a Jewish reader, there’s a certain ineffable Jewishness that can sometimes be imbued into an author’s work. I think of Nicole Krauss’ work as an example, or also Nathan Englander. It’s this balance of emotionality, an almost biblical poeticism, a sense of past always being present, and a sprinkling of absurdism and surrealism. This book oozed it. I was also impressed by how much Hemon utilized these tools to draw a vivid picture of war and being a refugee, not in the external details, but in the emotional ones. I know it’s only January, but this will be a book that all others I read this year are held against. A stunning read.
Graphic: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The new reading year has begun with bang with this astonishing work of literary fiction. The book opens in Sarajevo, 1914: the Jewish Rafael Pinto is daydreaming, mixing herbs and medicines in his father's apothecary shop. He dreams of love, of being a medical student again in Vienna, arguing philosophy in cafes and bedding handsome fellow students.
Pinto follows a handsome soldier out of the shop, and becomes a witness to history: blocks away Archduke Franz Ferdinand will be assassinated. This bloody deed will kickstart World War 1 and Pinto's decades-long trek across continents. We see him next as a doctor in the Austrian-Hungarian Army, where he meets the love of his life--the orphan raconteur Osman Karisik, a Bosnian Muslim. We see both Pinto and Osman in a POW camp, then dodging Bolsheviks in Tashkent. Osman may or may not be dead, but Pinto has found a reason to live: Osman has left behind an infant daughter named Rahela. With other refugees Pinto makes his way to Shanghai, only to become a refugee again during the World War II. Rahela becomes a headstrong young woman, determined to make her own mistakes for love. The story ends half a century later and on another continent, in Jerusalem, on the eve of another act of violence, September 11, 2001.
In beautiful, immersive prose, the reader is taken on this tumultuous journey, encountering persecution, loss, friendship, regret, and always--always--love. The reader will smell lavender and opium, know the stink of fear and heady erotic pleasure.
This is a fascinating novel. It's a deeply Jewish story of displacement and of longing for home; a story of war and 20th century history through the eyes of fascinating individuals; a profoundly human story of what makes us persist in living, and of finding meaning in love. There are few books I've read that I can say changed me. The World and All That It Holds may be one of them.
Pinto follows a handsome soldier out of the shop, and becomes a witness to history: blocks away Archduke Franz Ferdinand will be assassinated. This bloody deed will kickstart World War 1 and Pinto's decades-long trek across continents. We see him next as a doctor in the Austrian-Hungarian Army, where he meets the love of his life--the orphan raconteur Osman Karisik, a Bosnian Muslim. We see both Pinto and Osman in a POW camp, then dodging Bolsheviks in Tashkent. Osman may or may not be dead, but Pinto has found a reason to live: Osman has left behind an infant daughter named Rahela. With other refugees Pinto makes his way to Shanghai, only to become a refugee again during the World War II. Rahela becomes a headstrong young woman, determined to make her own mistakes for love. The story ends half a century later and on another continent, in Jerusalem, on the eve of another act of violence, September 11, 2001.
In beautiful, immersive prose, the reader is taken on this tumultuous journey, encountering persecution, loss, friendship, regret, and always--always--love. The reader will smell lavender and opium, know the stink of fear and heady erotic pleasure.
This is a fascinating novel. It's a deeply Jewish story of displacement and of longing for home; a story of war and 20th century history through the eyes of fascinating individuals; a profoundly human story of what makes us persist in living, and of finding meaning in love. There are few books I've read that I can say changed me. The World and All That It Holds may be one of them.
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I started reading a digital ARC of this casually, not expecting to actually finish it, but the description of lavender at the beginning drew me in, and then the assassination happens, and before I knew it, I couldn't stop. Loved the seamless shifts between languages, tenses, and perspectives, the musings on life, death, and time interspersed with innuendo and blunt violence. The World and All That It Holds captures not only what it might have been like to experience history, but also what it's like to remember and imagine it and how those are sort of the same thing.