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A review by spatterson12
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
3.0
This one missed the mark a little bit. Normally, I love multiple characters and jumping timelines, but the first third of the book I couldn’t connect to the stories. And a third of this book is about 200 pages.
There are about three different timelines happening, though kind of four.
Omeir and Anna each had their stories set in the 1400s. For whatever reason, whenever I got to an Anna chapter, I wasn’t that excited. Omeir had a little bit more interest with his family dynamics and his relationship with the twin calves he raised.
Then, there was a timeline set in 2020 with Zeno and Seymour. I had more investment in these characters - maybe because with Zeno we got his bonus timeline of time spent in Korea in the 1950s and his personal journey through about seven decades. Zeno was probably my favorite. With Seymour, we had a look at his relationship with his mother and her commitment to doing the best with what she had to support him.
The last timeline with Konstance was set about four generations after 2020, with her living in a manufactured world due to Earth’s demise. Her story slowly grew on me, and as it did, her chapters were those I got excited for.
At times the story went too in the weeds with individual character journeys and the book really didn’t need to be more than 600 pages. I get the overarching theme of how stories connect civilization, but it felt a little lost or not as focused as it could have been.
There are about three different timelines happening, though kind of four.
Omeir and Anna each had their stories set in the 1400s. For whatever reason, whenever I got to an Anna chapter, I wasn’t that excited. Omeir had a little bit more interest with his family dynamics and his relationship with the twin calves he raised.
Then, there was a timeline set in 2020 with Zeno and Seymour. I had more investment in these characters - maybe because with Zeno we got his bonus timeline of time spent in Korea in the 1950s and his personal journey through about seven decades. Zeno was probably my favorite. With Seymour, we had a look at his relationship with his mother and her commitment to doing the best with what she had to support him.
The last timeline with Konstance was set about four generations after 2020, with her living in a manufactured world due to Earth’s demise. Her story slowly grew on me, and as it did, her chapters were those I got excited for.
At times the story went too in the weeds with individual character journeys and the book really didn’t need to be more than 600 pages. I get the overarching theme of how stories connect civilization, but it felt a little lost or not as focused as it could have been.