A review by sr_marshrat
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

It's Mitchell, so, of course Cloud Atlas is beautifully written, each of his six worlds rendered such that they engulf the reader completely. It takes more than beautiful writing, though, to make a story engaging, and not all of Mitchell's six souls had stories that stood well on their own. I found myself racing through those chapters, less interested in the characters and their adventures, focussed instead on searching for the details that wove Mitchell's six, seemingly disparate, stories into one narrative. While some connections are clever, others are... thin. When the connective story elements are tenuous at best, they detract from the themes that would otherwise elegantly unify each chapter of this soul-journey into one novel.
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