Genre: Book
Grade: B-
Notable People: Anthony Doerr
Title: Cuckoo Cloud Land
Review: got this book as a birthday gift a year ago from my daughter-lost it-searched everywhere and found it while unpacking on mountain return a year later. Thus, was pretty excited to get at it, especially after reading Doerr’s extraordinary Pulitzer-prize winning first novel, “All the Light We Cannot See”. Well, bummer. Firstly, it is over 600 pages, and although I do believe Doerr is quality writer, I was pretty sure I was done after 50 pages. But, being a glutton and stubborn, I pushed through the whole thing-never feign any better really about it. From what I can make of it, it is a takeoff on an ancient Greek novel that was rediscovered in partial form 1500 years ago, and is a fantastical and sci-fi-ish account of a Homeric journey. So, Doerr takes this metaphor or parable or whatever the hell it is, and spins about a half dozen story-lines on differing characters in alternating chapters, in ancient Greece, in 1400s Constantinople, in modern day Idaho and on a spaceship from earth on a 100 plus year journey to another solar system. All of it is somehow related to this Greek text and to Libraries…don’t ask. Give it a try if you are a better reader than i. Dazed and confused-on to simpler things