Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this arc! I am currently in the midst of working on a post and/or review in regards to this book that will be posted on my IG account! Thats where I do my reviews at as well as on GR & Tiktok! Thank you so much again!

I went back again and tried this one. Sadly it's still a DNF from me.

It's a huge book. And the characters - I didn't connect with any. I like multiple POV but this one changed so much it gave me whiplash. I was confused and never could get into the book.

People seem to love this, that's why I attempted three times to read it.

But I think it's an official DNF.

I loved Anthony Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See", so I was so excited to receive an ARC of "Cloud Cuckoo Land" through NetGalley. However, it was hard for me to get into. I also had a hard time keeping up with all the subplots and characters. I did end up finishing it and was glad I did. Ultimately, it just wasn't for me.

I highlighted this book on my Booktube channel. The video can be found here: https://youtu.be/pww0CTEG8rI

Good God, Doerr takes you on a journey with this one. Let me begin by saying that I am a *huge* fan of Anthony Doerr. "All the Lights We Cannot See" is, hands-down, one of my favorite books of all time. I was so excited to receive this book as an ARC. Thank you so much! After finishing this one, I had to sit with it for a while. It was pretty dense, but oh my God does it come together beautifully. Doerr masterfully took five (I think?) completely separate plotlines from different points in history and somehow wove them together How did he do it? I have no idea. All I know is that the man is an absolute genius.

You might be wondering why I gave this book four stars if I was so moved by it. It's probably more like 4.5 stars. The only reason this book is not perfect in my mind is that it probably doesn't need to be as dense as it is. While the quality of the writing is absolutely gorgeous throughout, I feel like it could have been condensed in some areas. (However, I completely empathize with the editor since Doerr's writing is truly a thing to behold.).

took me quite a bit to get into it, but then it became very engaging and the multiple plotlines helped propel the story. felt a little scattered at times but ultimately a satisfying read

I started reading this one not really knowing much of anything about it other than Anthony Doerr was the author. I had read All the Light We Cannot See quite a while ago and really enjoyed it, but this one fell just a little short for me. Although it does provide a journey through the centuries for people who love books and libraries, and I loved the concept, I just could not quite get interested in the lives of all the characters, which did not help my interest in the book at all. That being said, my opinions are not going to stop me from recommending this title to others who enjoy beautifully written historical fiction.

This was a hard book to rate and talk about. I think at the end it was a total 5 out of 5 stars book for me. However the beginning was rough. I started this book probably like 3 times. I started it as soon as I got the ARC, and made it a couple of chapters until i let it go for a bit, only to revisit a couple of weeks later. Finally recently pushed by a friend I powered through and boy am I glad I did. How it all ties up together in the end was just a beauty of storytelling. IT is a disappointing and hopeful story all at once. Sad and yet inspiring. Read it you wont regret it (just keep pushing past the first chapters like it did).

I had such high hopes for this book after reading the author’s earlier book, All the Light We Cannot See. However, I just did not connect with this book and characters. The writing was very “wordy.” So a rather long book with characters I didn’t care for, too many words to say something that could have been expressed with about 1/3 of the pages, and dragging timelines basically left me unimpressed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for my advanced review copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

For more reviews, please visit my blog at: https://www.msladybugsbookreviews.com/. Over 1000 reviews posted!

I loved Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot Seem and was eager to read Cloud Cuckoo Land. It was very good, but for me not as beautiful as his previous novel. I think this is unfair because of how excellent All the Light was. It was a very long book, and took a long time for me to get into it.

I liked the book. It was unique and interesting. It was also not nearly as good as his last but that's a high bar he's set.

This one was a tough one, I felt like there was a lot going on. The multiple viewpoints and story lines, were a lot to take in and sometimes jarring with transitions, but each fascinating in their own rights. With anything, I had my favorites and sometimes struggled to get through the other sections in order to get back to what I considered my "main story," but all of it was very well done and beautifully written. Also just kind of a strange, which I consider a good thing, a departure from other pieces of literature I've consumed lately that seem to fall under a pre-existing category today. 3.5/5

I’m submitting a very tardy review but better late than never. I received the galley for this book and have read several other Anthony Doerr books and absolutely loved them so I was excited. However I struggled with this one. It was just post shutdown for Covid and I was mildly depressed and for some reason this book made those feelings worse. Every time I picked it up I had to put it down and before I went to a dark place I didn’t want to go to. Recently I saw it on my Kindle and decided it was time to complete the book or delete it. I’m so very glad I gave it one last chance. What a masterpiece. So many layers, so many storylines, all held together by the ancient book of Cloud Cuckoo Land. Just like the light and dark of the world illustrates in the ancient codex, Doer’s book is beautiful/tragic, hopeful/desperate, sad/joyful. Definitely on my favorites list and so happy I stuck with it.

I had high hopes for this one after loving "All the Light we Cannot See," but this unfortunately did not live up to expectations. After struggling so much with the physical ARC copy, I decided to purchase the Audible version, and unfortunately this made the book even more confusing. It just felt long, overly complicated and redundant. I definitely see why it would still appeal to others, and I would still recommend the book, but it just didn't work for me. I would still check out Doerr's writing in the future, however, as I have still enjoyed him in the past.

VERDICT: 3 STARS

Thank you to Scribner and Netgalley for a copy of this one in exchange for an honest review!

Such an undisputed favorite of the last couple of years. CLoud Cuckoo Land spans continents, centuries, life experiences, and manages to bring it all together in a surreal tale that begs to be told over and over again.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

I had been a fan of Doerr since reading his last book, All The Light We Cannot See, but wow THIS book. A celebration of stories across time and space that is now one of my favorite books of all time. These characters still feel like real people to me - fully fleshed out, with full lives. A champion of a novel - I cannot imagine it being done any better than this.

I definitely do not think this is the book for everyone, however. But if any of these buzzwords sound like a hit to you, I would definitely try: books about books, family, sacrifice, love, anger, and a little bit of space.

This was a difficult book to get into, is extremely long, and requires a lot of patience; it won't be everyone's cup of tea. I found it disjointed, frustrating, difficult to follow... and yet ultimately intriguing and by the end, a pretty good story. There are five points of view and it goes back in forth in time, with short chapters telling the stories of Konstance in the future who has spent her life on a space ship, Zeno and Seymour from modern day Idaho, and Anna and Omeir in 1400s Constantinople. The timelines are non-linear which is hard to follow and disruptive. With that many characters, I would have preferred it if the book had been written in chronological order and spent more time with each character per chapter; for me, it would have made for more immersive reading.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is an epic historical fiction novel and I would anticipate high school English classes using this piece of literature as a text on their syllabus. I thoroughly enjoyed most of the characters, the plot, and the historical settings. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy.

What an amazing novel! A group of people, separated by centuries, are united through the story of Aethon, a fable in which a sheepherder is turned into a donkey, a fish and a crow, learning about life as he goes. There is Anna, an orphan in a house of women who embroider for the church, who learns to read and who finds a book with the story. She escapes the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and takes little besides the book. Outside the walls, with the siege army determined to take the city, is Omeir. He knows little about the war or its purpose. He was conscripted to join the fighting force when it needed his oxen to pull about heavy implements of war.

Fast forward five hundred years and we meet Zeno. He met the love of his life while a prisoner of war in Korea and the story of the foolish sheepherder united the two men in their travails and gave Zeno's life a purpose. Once he goes back to the United States, he spends his retirement in the town library, painstakingly translating Aethon's story from the original language from a rediscovered manuscript that is torn and tattered, stained and missing pages and words. He shares the story with a group of fifth graders who soon learn to love the story and the man who shares it with them. He saves their lives on the day that a misguided teen comes into the library with bombs, determined to destroy the establishment that has never had time for him or his mother.

Fast forward again and we meet Konstance. She has grown up on a spaceship, one that fled the Earth's destruction from climate change and that is headed to a new planet. That planet will not be reached during any of the crew's lifetimes so they are a wish and a prayer that their descendants can reach the new planet and give man another chance. As she reads Aethon's story, she starts to put together her father's love of it with clues around her to discover a bigger truth than the ones she has grown up with.

My only regret is reading this marvelous novel so early in the year. It is hard to imagine that I will read a better one this year. The intricate stories of each character and the way their lives are intertwined over the centuries through love of a story is an amazing plotline and one that Doerr manages magnificently. I can easily see this novel being my top read of 2023 and it would be a travesty if it doesn't win major literary awards. This book is recommended for literary fiction readers, historical fiction readers and anyone who enjoys a wonderful book.

Sadly, I was not able to finish this book. I got about 60% through but found I was so confused and was unable to follow the story or characters or timelines. Thanks so much for my copy though!!