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snowmaiden 's review for:
The History of Love
by Nicole Krauss
It occurred to me as I neared the end of this book that there are two kinds of puzzle-box books. In one, the characters all know what's going on but refuse to say it out loud (usually due to internalized trauma), so that the reader is puzzled. And when that reader finally finds out the trick of the book after hundreds of pages (that Rosebud was his sled, or Soylent Green is people), their response is to wonder "Why didn't you just say that in the beginning and save everyone a lot of trouble?"
This isn't that kind of book, thank goodness. It's the other kind, where the reader becomes fairly clear about what's going on while the characters still have no idea. That kind can also backfire, so that the reader is left wondering why the heck these characters are all so dumb. Fortunately, that didn't happen here either (or at least not for me). Instead, I was really, really rooting for all the characters to figure it out and wondering what would happen when they did. I'm not sure the ending was quite up to my expectations, but I'm glad I read it, all the same.
This isn't that kind of book, thank goodness. It's the other kind, where the reader becomes fairly clear about what's going on while the characters still have no idea. That kind can also backfire, so that the reader is left wondering why the heck these characters are all so dumb. Fortunately, that didn't happen here either (or at least not for me). Instead, I was really, really rooting for all the characters to figure it out and wondering what would happen when they did. I'm not sure the ending was quite up to my expectations, but I'm glad I read it, all the same.