Cloud Cuckoo Land

 My book club selected Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr as our Feb book.  I truly had no idea what to expect and was worried this would be an over hyped book.   I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book.   I only gave it 4 stars rather than 5 only because I felt there could have been a bit more resolution with the why behind Konstance's storyline as well as a little more resolution with some items in Seymour's story.  These are minor items in the scheme of this novel.  There are multiple interweaving storylines that span many years with a common plot element in each of the time eras that connects each of the stories.    The level of detail and story structure is very well done and although this is a book over 600 pages long it reads very quickly and is hard to put down once you have begun.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book does a wonderful job of intertwining 4 stories set at distinct times in history but all having a common thread. Doerr does a wonderful job of combining description with plot. There is not a ton of action such as a thriller would have but there is plenty of occurrences in the characters' lives. One thing I enjoyed was the characters personalities were described and you got a feel for who they were, but you never really had a huge description of their appearance. Each character had a defining characteristic that was made clear, but there wasn't necessarily a he had brown hair, she had blond level of detail which made the reader's imagination take the center stage on how they envisioned the characters. I appreciated the way the storylines were completed but I would have liked a bit of the why behind some of the stories, particularly Konstance's-this is why it is a 4 and not a 5 star book for me. The book had a definite layered approach to it, where different readers seeking different levels of entertainment and satisfaction would all be appeased. The storyline is well written and complete, but then there is definitely philosophical and deeper meaning in the stories. Additionally, lovers of history or ancient texts would be able to read and enjoy these features and research more about those aspects if desired. All in all a very good book

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Challenge Prompts

The Challenge Prompts I will use this for are:  

1. Literary Escapes  #LiteraryEscapes  Greenland
2. Color Coded white
3. 2022TBR  #2022ReadingChallenge  #5 Over 500 Pages
4. Mount TBR   #MountTBR2022  Book #1
5. Beat the Backlist #BTB2022  #3 longer than 500 pages
6. What an Animal Book #10
7. Historic Fiction  #histficreadingchallenge   Book #2
8. Around the Year in 52 Books #19. A book that involves alternate reality, alternate worlds, or alternate history
9. 52 Book Club  #the52bookclub  #29 Over 500 pages long
10. BooklistQueen  #booklistqueenreadingchallenge2022  #24. Pulitzer Prize Winner
11. Bookworm #8 Read a book that takes place in the future
12. Nancy Drew #36. The Secret of the Golden Pavilion (1959) - read a best seller
13. Nerd Daily  #NERDREADING2022 #49 bought on holidays
14. Nerdy Bookworm  #NerdyBookwormChallengeXO #12  Goodread's 2021 Winner or Nominee
15. OWLS 22  #31 Divination: A book set in the future
16. Pick your Poison #88 an alternate history
17. PopSugar #popsugarreadingchallenge #47. A book featuring a parallel reality  
18. RAD challenge #aradreadingchallenge #2  A Booktok rec
19. Lifetime of Reading   January – Adult Fiction with a Child Protagonist (Under 12)
20. 52 books in 52 weeks  # 12 Vatican Secret
21. Unruly Reader Bingo  #20 a play