First Book Review of the New Year

It was so hard to get into this book!  The beginning was just so confusing to me.  There was so much jumping between characters and moving around the timeline. I was quite lost for the first 10 percent of the book, and I almost gave up.  But I was very glad that I kept reading. The characters got sorted, the timeline became more obvious, and then the story just soared.

By about halfway through the book, I think I had an idea of where the story was going; but that didn’t make it boring. It made me totally interested to see what was going to happen to the characters as the story went along.  The characters were very poignant.  You get to know them very very well, and begin to identify with them and feel for them- to the point that I was almost disappointed when the book ended.

This story is about freedom, I think.  Different forms of freedom, and how people seek for it.  I don’t want to give away too much of the story line, so I’m not really going to say a lot about it.  It is set in the South before, during, and after the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.  It is also set in Nepal- in the caste system and the practical slavery of the quarries.  The story brings the 2 very different settings together beautifully, challenging bias and prejudice in a very good way.

This is not the kind of story I usually get into- it’s really pretty intense; but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will be looking for more from this author. Highly recommend it.