This book is a novel (and sort of a fairy tale) about someone drawn back into his family history in Georgia after escaping from the country with his father and brother during the civil war following the breakaway from the USSR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the author, I felt like the book served as a memorial for their life in Georgia, their memories and the people that they left behind. Sometimes I read a book and I feel like the author was seeking catharsis – this was one of those cases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For myself, the book was a good chance to revisit Tbilisi and the parts of the city we visited. It gave the city a deeper historical context, and it was fun to read about places that we had walked through ourselves. I enjoyed some of the characters – one taxi driver kept giving out great insults – while others were a little grating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The author\u2019s style was a little different – voices of characters that lived on in the narrator\u2019s head, backfilling information over and over again – these decisions felt a little gimmicky to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story itself was just a bit too perfect – key characters appear at precisely the right time: the villain, the hitchhiker, the soldier in Ossetia. I guess that was why I felt it more of a fairy tale than a novel – but if you can suspend the disbelief maybe you\u2019ll enjoy the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The end turned unexpectedly violent – which caught me off guard – but this book is the story of a violent revolution and violence (and hope) between people. I guess I shouldn\u2019t have been surprised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next I am reading The Mermaids Singing by Val McDermid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This book is a novel (and sort of a fairy tale) about someone drawn back into his family history in Georgia after escaping from the country with his father and brother during the civil war following the breakaway from the USSR. For the author, I felt like the book served as a memorial for their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pOpl7-XG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bryan.fredricks.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}