That was the beauty of books, wasn’t it? They took you places you didn’t know you needed to go…
Alice has always wanted to be a writer. Her talent is innate, but her stories remain safe and detached, until a devastating event breaks her heart open, and she creates a stunning debut novel. Her words, in turn, find their way to readers, from a teenager hiding her homelessness, to a free diver pushing himself beyond endurance, an artist furious at the world around her, a bookseller in search of love, a widower rent by grief. Each one is drawn into Alice’s novel; each one discovers something different that alters their perspective, and presents new pathways forward for their lives.
Together, their stories reveal how books can affect us in the most beautiful and unexpected of ways―and how we are all more closely connected to one another than we might think.
Comment: The blurb of this book caught my attention and I've talked to a friend about it and we agreed on buddy reading it. I'm still unsure on how to properly label and rate it, so I'm sticking to my reading experience.
In this book we meet Alice, she is determined to be a writer but it isn't until a tragedy happens that she finds her inspiration. After her life takes a turn and her book is done and finally published, it goes out there into the hands of many readers. Some of those readers find a specific connection to her book and as their experience guides them, more connections arise when new readers also find the book, in a cycle that doesn't end but that has interesting links. Some of these readers also know each other, but why should one book make such a difference?
Looking at the blurb, I did assume this story would have a more linear narrative but it turns out that the story begins with Alice, the writer, and her life, her experiences and what made her want to right the book that is the catalyst of everything. From then on, this book can be divided into short stories, focused on the several key characters that find Alice book in specific moments in their lives and how they are touched by it, if more or less intensely.
In a way, this was an original tactic to me, but while each character has an intriguing backstory, some were definitely more intriguing and appealing to me than others. In fact, some characters didn't really impress me and I was eager to have their part finished. There are ten characters we follow: Alice who writes the book and nine other people who read (or find) the book. Of those nine, a few know each other or will meet each other at some point, making the overall plot have some kind of connection.
I appreciated this aspect, but it was also a little too vague. The characters don't really interact, and the author tells this story in that style of storytelling, as a finished product which can't be changed, which means we read things without much of a twist. If I remember correctly, only the last character, right before the epilogue, has a narrative to tell which isn't set in stone and perhaps a clever reader would have guessed right away why. I was still a little surprised by then, but since some characters had not been very interesting to me, I admit my dedication to love this book had been lost.
This is to say that I can't really label the book. I'd say, at this moment, that it is a fictional book about books, but there isn't an obvious way to explain the plot or the goal. I would go as far as to say that, considering how this ends, there isn't a goal, none of the characters seem to be going towards a specific situation or accomplishment and while I can imagine scenarios for those I liked the best, the narrative is rather static and makes what is being said to be a little uninspired. I think this isn't what the author intended, the reader should appreciate the idea of how a book can affect one's life and this is great, but I kind of wished for more out of this book. I certainly wish that the characters had had more interactions and stringer connections.
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