I loved "All the Light You Cannot See" so I was very excited to read this book. I sadly did not enjoy this book and did not finish the book.

Cloud Cuckoo Land was a gorgeous story about the resilience of children and the importance of the stories we tell them. It follows the path of a few children who lived many years apart and they all hear the tale of Cloud Cuckoo Land. One of the best books I have ever read.

Cloud Cuckoo land is full of the same beautiful descriptions and powerful vignettes as Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See.

A long-lost Greek text, a fantastical story of discovery, connects a group of seemingly unrelated people, all of whom face difficult struggles at different eras spanning centuries. Doerr’s prose is at time stunningly beautiful, at times heartbreakingly sad and at others incredibly inspiring, but always descriptive and engaging. This is that rare novel that will have you planning to read it a second and third time before you are even finished the first. It’s truly that good.

Simply remarkable. This story was everything I had hoped it would be. The characters were so full of depth, the story sweeping and mesmerizing. I loved how everyone was someone interconnected. And the ending completely blew me away. Thank you to the publishers via netgalley for this arc. I loved it.

I was a fan of Anthony Doerr novel All the Light We Cannot See however since I am not a fan of fantasy genre novels reading Cloud Cuckoo Land was hard. He delivers beautiful descriptions; it was well written, but I am not its target market so very hard for me to give it the well-deserved phrase it merits.



Thank you #netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

I should have known that this book wouldn't be for me. It was too long, too slow, I didn't care about any of the characters and not a lot happened. I liked the way that the story inside the story lasted through time and "space" and how that connected them all, but in the end it wasn't enough for me.

I find it hard to write reviews for books that I feel "meh" about - didn't love it didn't hate it.
All four of these books are ones that I got from @NetGalley and read over the last couple of months, and I found each of them disappointing. I'm going to do a speed round of super-short honest reviews:
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Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados: I had heard people comparing this book to My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. This is true in that both books have an unlikeable/insufferable female main character living in New York City, but I felt that this book lacked the sharpness that Moshfegh's did - it read more like an episode of Gossip Girl.
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Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr: Doerr's last book, All The Light We Cannot is one of my favourite WWII novels, so I was eager to read Cloud Cuckoo Land. However, I found it felt disjointed - mixing a lot of different genres and plots and characters, but not ever coming together in a way I found satisfying. I might return to this one down the road and give it a second chance, as it might have been a matter of just not being in the right mood for it.
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The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker: I won't lie I DNF'd this one. The description said it would be a "Gothic ghost story with a fiery feminist zeal" but there was so much foreshadowing and so little action that I just wanted it over with.
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Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw: A horror novella, with an interesting premise, but the prose was over-indulgent and there's a lot of petty squabbling amongst the characters. It included some amusing commentary on horror tropes that served as some comic-relief and I would definitely watch the B-horror movie version of this, but didn't like the book as much as I expected to.
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#thecherryrobbers #netgalley #nothingbutblackenedteeth #cloudcuckooland #happyhour #bookreview #shortbookreview #tinybookreview #bookstagram

I haven’t read this authors previous book, but I know it’s highly talked about. This was okay for me - I usually love long, immersive stories, but I wasn’t able to fully connect with this one.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr spans several time periods, from the fifteenth century to present time, and into the future. It includes the voices of five main characters throughout these time periods. The characters are all connected by a book, the story of Aethon, which has been preserved across the centuries.
All The Light We Cannot See is one of my absolute favourite books, so when I heard this was coming out, I had to jump on board. In the end, I enjoyed it. But it took me a while to get to that place of enjoyment. This book is fairly long and I contemplated dropping it a number of times throughout the first half. Initially, it can be confusing as it is a little difficult to follow what is going on amongst the five characters. Midway, however, it began to come together for me, and I began to enjoy how the perspectives intertwined. I also appreciated the uniqueness of this novel, and how it presents strong themes of hope and connection. This book is fairly complex and I don’t think it is for everyone, but I am glad I stuck with it. If you love to decipher strong literary pieces, than this one is for you.
Thank you so much to @simonschusterca and @netgalley for sending me a digital download of this book!

Anthony Doerr is a magnificent writer. The worlds that he has built in Cloud Cuckoo Land are so intricate and connected, but on top of that we are given the most beautiful writing and moments that brought me actual tears. The care that he gives to his characters, even some who might seem undeserving of compassion given their choices, is so moving. To write a novel that jumps around in time like this one did would require so much research, but then to add a layer of the future beings this masterpiece to a whole other level. All the Light We Cannot See is one of my favourite books of all time, and Cloud Cuckoo Land proved to me that anything this author writes will be equally exceptional. I am still moved whenever I think of Tree and Moonlight. Of Zeno and his quiet heart.

I loved this book. There are five main people in this story. Anna, Omeir, Seymour, Zeno, and Konstance.

They are all from different centuries and are drawn together by the love of the same book. The story goes back and forth between all the different timelines. I found it kept my interest a d I felt very draw. To AL, the characters especial,y Anba and Konstance.

I would highly recommend this book.

I think I like it…

I absolutely loved all “All The Light We Cannot See”, so it was a no brainer when I saw that Anthony Doerr wrote Cloud Cuckoo Land.

The book follows five characters: Konstance, Zeno, Seymour, Anna, and Omeir in three different time periods (past, present future- includes spaceships!).
Konstance is the character that is lives in a spaceship, in present day, Zeno and Seymour are from Idaho and both Anna and Omeir in Constantinople around the 1400's. The individual story lines are really interesting, I’m surprised I didn’t have a favorite. I did struggle while reading the book because it was just really confusing and at times it was hard to keep up with the shifts in both characters and time periods. The quick switches were a little too random for my taste but nonetheless the overall story was fascinating and I really liked how all the characters were connected to each other. No surprise here, the writing was beautiful, and the characters all stole a piece of my heart.


Thank You to Anthony Doerr and Simon & Schuster Canada, Scribner, for the digital ARC provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

This was certainly an ambitious title, waxing lyrical about the art of storytelling. There were certainly beautiful moments but overall I found the story hard to follow. At times it was difficult to know whose storyline we were in, and while he tried to tie everything together I found it just didn’t work.

I am submitting this review in behalf of receiving an advanced copy from #netgalley. While I have enjoyed previous novels written by this author, I am sad to say that I really struggled with this one. It is not my typical genre, which normally isn't an issue, but I just couldn't get into this story.

I was really excited to read this new book by Anthony Doerr. I really loved his "All the lights we cannot see" and was expecting another magnificent and beautifully written story from this talented author.

Unfortunately, this book didn't really work for me. I cant really say what went wrong, but I just couldn't connect with the characters or get interested in the story itself. The overall writing was still gorgeous, but not being too involved in the plot, I found it to be tedious and just too slow for my liking.

Cloud Cuckoo Land tells five interconnected stories written in different genres: historical fiction, contemporary fiction and science fiction. The way this book was structured reminded me of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, which I greatly enjoyed. However, whereas the stories in Cloud Atlas really excelled at creating a wonderful literary puzzle that was resolved right at the very end, Cloud Cuckoo Land's stories felt lifeless and plain, and the way it was all tightened up together just felt very unclimactic to me.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

It took me a bit to get really into this book. Mostly just until I got all the different characters and stories right. Then I could hardly stop listening.
Doerr takes characters from across time - starting with Anna and Omeir during the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and moving forward to the future with 14 year old Konstance, the last of a group of humans travelling across space in search of a new planet. Between them is Zeno, a gay man born in the 1940, and Seymour, from the present day, who doesn't fit in (he might be on on the autism spectrum) and finds solace in wilderness.
What ties them all together is a fictional novel about Aethon, a story about a shepherd who is magically transformed into different creatures in his search for Cloud Cuckoo Land. It's credited to Antonius Diogenes, a real author from around 100 CE.
There is a lot going on in this book. At the same time as Anthony Doerr braids together the stories of the different characters, he weaves in multiple themes. He highlights heroes, environmental degradation, our attitudes towards those who are different, the importance of libraries and librarians, and ultimately, the power of story.

Sometimes I felt like I was in Cuckoo Land, being transported from time and place. The stories are well written and it takes some time and thoughtfulness to see how they all intermingle.. it is over 600 pages so take your time and get involved with the characters. Wonderful story., but not a easy read for everyone.

Anthony Doerr has written a masterpiece of a tale, connecting five characters, over thousands of years through their relationship to a single book. A novel that is so richly written, so cleverly constructed, so impactful that you can’t stop reading and yet you dread the thought of finishing. But of course, since you can’t stop reading it, the end comes, and alas it is the end.

The book jumped around among characters, places and time periods. Especially in the beginning of the book. The psychologies of the characters are rather superficial, at times the prose was repetitive and a bit too glib, a bit too convenient and moderately over-processed. In spite of this, it is a beautifully written book showing how broken the world is and the damage we continue to inflict upon it, but it also is a shining example of hope.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Shuster Canada who provided me with a copy of this book. I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

I really loved Anthony Doerr's other books: All The Light We Cannot See and Four Seasons in Rome.

I received an eARC from Netgalley.

I did enjoy this book too. It is beautifully written. It is slow at the beginning and takes a little while to follow the five different characters and how their stories interconnect. They are all linked by an ancient story and how it filters thru the ages and impacts each character. Two characters in the past (ancient Constantinople), two in current day US and one in the future in space.

It's a curious mix of genres - historical fiction, scifi, literary fiction. With themes of environment, youth radicalism and the future.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. Wonderfully written!