What does this remember like?

“In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.”

- Milan Kundera, ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’

but I really liked the plot. A lot.
Should I see the film?

Absolutely everyone should read this book.

This book blew me away, I love how one story is actually like four separate stories, and even more than that 100,000 stories all in one.

Highly stylized, hilarious and ultimately tragic and illuminating—this book is actually three stories entagled, which in the end is one great big story. Triumph can not exist without tragety. The hero, Jonathan travels to the Ukraine with a translator with badly butchered English to find the woman who may have saved his Jewish grandfather from the Nazis. What occurs is the trials and misunderstandings of three travelers (and a dog) in search for answers that may or may not ever come. What is actually illuminated may surprise you.

One of my favorite books. I love it.

Completely different from anything I’ve read before. Some of Alex’s attempts at English phrases are laugh-out-loud funny, but overall I found the book a serious, intriguing account of a journey and a relationship between two guys very close in age to me.

It was a bit difficult to follow at times, and some parts were slow, but the novel is very funny (and sad).

The book seems to have three separate narratives that wind together and are related. I thought the author did a good job of handling such a hard situation. I was sad, but not overwhelmed. It did make me stop and think.

I just started it, but so far so good. . .

The use of various devices to narrate the story was very interesting and entertaining. However, aside from the novel way of telling the story, I feel like it is a fairly typical story of how people today are still struggling to reconcile their views of the world and themselves with the horrors of the last century. The rave reviews make me feel like I missed something. Also, there were a few pretty huge coincidences that I found a little distracting.

Finished this on the beaches of Brazil. Good book but the ending disappointed. I feel like he just wanted to tie everything together, and that he didn’t really earn the ending that he gave. A lot of crazy things happened, but they had no power.

Best book I ever read.

The story didn’t come together for me right away, so when it did I appreciated it all the more. That was likely a reflection of my reading that month – I was reading too many other books in odd parallel-series combinations, so it was difficult give this book the attention it requires and deserves.

Really wonderful so far. Has the same quality as the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but with more humor.

I’m starting this one tonight and can’t wait!

—Susan Henderson

Fantastic. Still digesting, but I’m sure I’ll write more about it later.