2024~15. There There

Tommy Orange. 2018.

The foreshadowing in this book was a bit much.  The sense of dread and foreboding was painful. I didn't want to get attached to any of the characters because I just knew from the very beginning that no good was going to come to any of them.  I don't think it is a spoiler to say, this is indeed what happened.  I often love the storytelling technique where there are multiple, separate narratives that seem unrelated, but as the story progresses they begin to converge.  In this case, it took a very long time and in some cases it was hard to keep track of the many lives as they seemingly marched along parallel to the others until the very end.  

It is hard not to appreciate the complexity of the story or the quality of the writing and I can understand why this made this year's Greatest American Novels List by The Atlantic, but I didn't love it the whole way through.  Truly the agony of feeling that everyone was doomed made it very difficult for me to love the book.  I am not even sure what it was about the writing that gave me this sense, but for me it was a distraction to feel like while I did not know what was going to happen, I knew it would not be good.  Don't get me wrong, I generally hate a "happy ending," but this was taking the opposite too far.

All of this said, I cannot say I wouldn't recommend it.  Judah will possibly be thrilled with the Not Not Recommended it is thus receiving.

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