caitlin_mac_tire 's review for:

History of the Rain by Niall Williams

5.0

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This book should get a thousand stars. I found it on the long list for the Man Booker and if it doesn't win, there is something wrong with the world. The writing is pure poetry that will make you read the pages over and over again just so you can keep hearing the words like music. A young woman bedridden by an unknown illness takes the reader on a journey to relive her family history through her father's book collection. There is so much sadness here and the characters are so incredibly broken, but there is so much love. At the end that's what this book is - a love letter to this family and the people they have lost, to the great search for validation and meaning in life, to books and readers, and most of all to Ireland. Niall Williams is a master.