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flightyrachel 's review for:
The Shadow Land
by Elizabeth Kostova
I really enjoyed this, coming to it with no expectations, as I have never read The Historian (although now I will!).
Set in Bulgaria, a country I know nothing about, I found it rather fairy tale like. Once you suspend the disbelief and go with the flow, everything falls into place beautifully. Alexandra has travelled to Sofia as a sort of tribute to her lost brother. He disappeared on a family hiking trip, and always planned to visit. A chance meeting with a funeral party at a hotel leaves her accidentally holding an urn full of ashes, and she sets about trying to return it with the help of an erudite taxi driver and an ever growing collection of marvellously spritely old people. Fairy and folk tales are referenced constantly in this story and there is a definite allegorical air about it, as the urn turns out to be a real box of secrets.
The book gets darker when the history of the deceased takes centre stage. It's quite hard to read in parts, and I was ashamed that I knew nothing about this period of history. I had a similar response to Isabel Allende's A Long Petal of the Sea, and I think if you enjoyed that you might enjoy this too.
Set in Bulgaria, a country I know nothing about, I found it rather fairy tale like. Once you suspend the disbelief and go with the flow, everything falls into place beautifully. Alexandra has travelled to Sofia as a sort of tribute to her lost brother. He disappeared on a family hiking trip, and always planned to visit. A chance meeting with a funeral party at a hotel leaves her accidentally holding an urn full of ashes, and she sets about trying to return it with the help of an erudite taxi driver and an ever growing collection of marvellously spritely old people. Fairy and folk tales are referenced constantly in this story and there is a definite allegorical air about it, as the urn turns out to be a real box of secrets.
The book gets darker when the history of the deceased takes centre stage. It's quite hard to read in parts, and I was ashamed that I knew nothing about this period of history. I had a similar response to Isabel Allende's A Long Petal of the Sea, and I think if you enjoyed that you might enjoy this too.