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thepaperwitch 's review for:
The Shadow Land
by Elizabeth Kostova
Reviewed on Books Cats Tea
The Shadow Land is both a beautiful and tragic book. Set within the landscape of Bulgaria, the story follows Alexandra who travels to Bulgaria from America in order to teach English. Throughout the story, we get glimpses into Alexandra's childhood as she sets out with her cab driver to return a wooden box containing an urn and ashes to a family she helped load their belongings into a cab. Accidentally keeping the leather bag containing the ashes and trying to track down the family, Alexandra learns more about her new companion and cab driver, Bobby, and the life of the man who she is now carrying. Together, Alexandra and Bobby discover a deep and dark story about the history of both the man in the urn and the corrupt government of Bulgaria.
Kostova weaves deep characters set in beautifully descriptive (if not, sometimes tragic or rundown) settings across different timelines. It is an historical fiction novel that takes place in a country and settings that rarely is a popular choice. I did take issue with the way in which tenses were used. The main timeline in the novel is in the third person, but sometimes flashbacks and past stories were in either first or third person, which disturbed and confused the flow, especially with Alexandra's first flashback/memory. I thought that those could have been refined for less confusion. I also did not feel completely attached to Alexandra's backstory and, consequentially, her reasoning for starting this personal journey to return the urn. I went with it, however, and enjoyed the story despite the issues with tense and some occasional slowing of the story.
The Shadow Land is both a beautiful and tragic book. Set within the landscape of Bulgaria, the story follows Alexandra who travels to Bulgaria from America in order to teach English. Throughout the story, we get glimpses into Alexandra's childhood as she sets out with her cab driver to return a wooden box containing an urn and ashes to a family she helped load their belongings into a cab. Accidentally keeping the leather bag containing the ashes and trying to track down the family, Alexandra learns more about her new companion and cab driver, Bobby, and the life of the man who she is now carrying. Together, Alexandra and Bobby discover a deep and dark story about the history of both the man in the urn and the corrupt government of Bulgaria.
Kostova weaves deep characters set in beautifully descriptive (if not, sometimes tragic or rundown) settings across different timelines. It is an historical fiction novel that takes place in a country and settings that rarely is a popular choice. I did take issue with the way in which tenses were used. The main timeline in the novel is in the third person, but sometimes flashbacks and past stories were in either first or third person, which disturbed and confused the flow, especially with Alexandra's first flashback/memory. I thought that those could have been refined for less confusion. I also did not feel completely attached to Alexandra's backstory and, consequentially, her reasoning for starting this personal journey to return the urn. I went with it, however, and enjoyed the story despite the issues with tense and some occasional slowing of the story.