Part historical fiction, part fantasy and part science fiction. This book has it all. A lot of ground is covered in its 640 pages and will require perseverance to complete. However, if you like this type of book and can hang in there, it will be worth it. It wasn't until I was halfway into the narrative before I became captivated by the different characters and their stories and became totally immersed in the book.

In this weighty tome, different stories surrounding a common theme of hope and interconnectedness, spread over timelines in the past, present and future. The reader is introduced to five main characters, as well as an ancient mythical legend, within the novel The chapters quickly bounce back and forth between the different characters and timelines, ultimately revealing their associations.

Anthony Doerr is an accomplished storyteller and he has a Pulitzer Prize for his last book, "All the Light We Cannot See", to prove it. This is another well crafted book that will be sure to get many five star reviews. He has a true gift for bringing words to life on the page and has used a unique approach to achieving his vision for this novel..

My sincere thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for this ARC ebook.

If you're in the mood for a historical fiction, modern fiction, science-fiction mash-up, then Cloud Cuckoo Land might be for you. Doerr writes eloquently and can really make you see exactly what is going on in a scene. This is a double-edged sword, because that means descriptions are a bit longer. So going in, know that this book is a chunk! I was pretty interested from the start of the story, but in the middle it sagged, most likely from my impatience at wanting to know why we were following three different stories and timelines. I was only really into 2 of the 3 storylines, and kind of dreaded going through one of them. The last third of the book excited me again, as it gets closer and closer to showing you how it all ties together. Overall, it is an interesting story that made me feel quite sad by the end.

I did have something that irked me, and that is that a "villain" of sorts in the book is on the autism spectrum, at the very least having sensory processing disorder. As an autistic person myself, with autistic friends and family as well, it kind of sucks to see quirks and symptoms displayed as bad qualities that all lead up to the character being gullible and doing a bad thing. It was like watching someone take random bits of me (for instance, having a special interest, needing sensory regulation) and showing it as bad, even when sometimes it was meant to be endearing or redemptive. (Yay for the redemption, but the damage was already done.)

Overall, 3 stars. It just didn't grab me like I had hoped. Recommended for fans of Doerr, if you like detailed writing, are interested in a genre mash-up, and if you like waiting a while for a plot payout.

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for an e-ARC of this book.

It took me a month to read the first half of Cloud Cuckoo Land and two days to read the second half. I was very lukewarm at first - what is going on? how are these stories connecting? - but once things started coming together, I couldn't put it down. I loved it. I did find some of the stories more compelling than others (especially Zeno's and Konstance's) and I didn't love the 15th century storyline. But overall, this was a magical book that's one of my favorites of the year so far.

I really wanted to love this book. This authors last book is one of my absolute favorite books, but this one didn't land for me.

I was so lost. There are multiple narrators and a story within a story. The lay out for me was confusing and I kept getting lost on who was who and what I was reading. I put this book down 3 times before I finally just read it.

The writing is beautiful and its not a terrible book, it just wasn't for me.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A little long for me but what a book! Very different than my typical read with all the characters and various story lines coming together. While it was interesting, I definitely had to re read pages to understand the prose and did zone out in the middle. Would recommend to others but probably not re-read. 3.5 stars

“Stranger, whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you.”

Doerr writes beautifully about people and their connections to a fantastical book across time along with the precious interconnectedness of all humanity, animals, and nature.

The thread that binds, the center stage of Doerr’s work, is a mythological book within the book called Cloud Cuckoo Land. Throughout the journey, across all times, the book brings joy and hope to people when most needed. The theme of saving the worn ancient text and the effort involved by many across time to prevent the book from dying brings purpose to people. Working in a library, I was touched by the book’s relevance...the noble purpose of keeping books alive...and how a book is an escape that can impact lives.

The book is quite ambitious. Told in multiple timelines spanning ancient to modern to future in 5 voices plus the story of the central fictional book of Cloud Cuckoo Land is a lot to be invested in. There are many, many themes covered in the book like global warming, LGBTQ+, mental illness, physical malformities, social norms, outcasts, haves versus have nots, and it is a lot to pull together. Doerr’s book is genre spanning from myth to historical fiction to contemporary to fantasy to science fiction. The length and detail and varied content was challenging for me as a reader. I liked the first and final quarters of the book best and struggled a bit to continue with the middle. The storylines are great, and throughout there are moments that grabbed my heart for sure, but the process of reading still felt long because there is so much to make sense of.

I did however find that I appreciated the book more in the days after reading it, reflecting on the different souls and their relevance to the overall story, their interconnections, and the power of Aetheon’s story on each character’s storyline. Digesting the book afterwards was much more satisfying than I expected and the themes and character arcs did touch my heart. It’s written beautifully. The characters, like Aetheon, spend a lot of time searching and longing for more. In the end, the message that maybe what you have is good enough rings true then, now, and into the future.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Told from multiple perspectives, and in multiple time frames. Cloud Cuckoo Land is a lost manuscript of the story of Aethon, and may just be the very first fictional writing ever discovered. In the 1400s Anna, a 13 year old orphan find this story and learns to read. Outside the walls of the city is a boy named Omier who is manipulated to join the army to take down the city Anna lives in. Present day, Zeno is with a group of youth in the library preparing the play “Cloud Cuckoo Land” to present for the local city in Idaho. Seymour, a troubled teen has planted a bomb in the library to stop the development of homes ruining the forest. Many years in the future Konstance is living on an Intergalactic spacecraft Argos, and has never stepped foot on Earths surface. Due to illness on the ship, she is placed in lockdown for more than a year. To pass the time she begins copying the story of Aethon on scraps of garbage.

A very ambitious book! I’d imagine it took Anthony Doer a very long time to create this. The book is multi genre (Historical fiction, Greek mythology, Science Fiction, Thriller, and Fantasy) all wound into one. The writing was very beautifully done, and very descriptive. It took some major brain power on my part at times to understand what was going on, and to adequately keep up with the time changes. There are definitely people who will thoroughly enjoy this book, I can picture my dad and one of my brothers devouring it

At first I wasn't quite sure where this was going. But oh wow. When it did. Doerr manages to tie everything together beautifully., and give us hope when all seemed hopeless. And the biggest source of hope? Books, stories, libraries, and librarians.

I was a huge fan of All the Light We Cannot See so I was looking forwars to Cloud Cuckoo Land. Unfortunately, it fell flat for me. I couldn't get interested in the story and couldn't finish it

Thanks to @netgalley and @simonandschuster for the opportunity to read @anthonydoerrwriter latest novel. Fans of #allthelightwecannotsee will immediately see the similarities of #cloudcuckooland to the earlier award winning #ww2novel. Once again, Doerr has developed multiple character lines that intersect to create an immersive reading experience, but this time they cover hundreds of centuries. I’m not a huge #sciencefiction fan, so when the novel started several decades in the future when the human race has finally decimated our planet to the point it’s not livable, I was unsure of my interest in the story. However, as you get to know each of the characters it becomes important to understand how they are all connected to the #ancientgreek hero story of Cloud Cuckoo Land. The ending of the novel beautifully wraps up the connection and the importance of the fantastical worlds that #reading provides us the opportunity to visit. I especially enjoyed how this novel takes place right before the #covidpandemic but still alludes to it in non-specific terms for future scenes. I also think it handles the topic of #climatechange in a manner that is relatable. Be sure to pick up this ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ novel when it is released in #september2021. 📚📚📚 #netgalleyreads #netgalleyreview #bookrecommendations #instabook

Prepare to be amazed! Doerr has written a lyrical novel of desperation and hope. The story, told by five different characters, is magical.

I loved All the Light We Cannot See. It was a 5 Star read for me. So, I had some high expectations going into this one and I really REALLY wanted to love it. But in the end, I just ...liked it. The beautiful writing is there. The story is there. It just never fully connected for me.

The story is told through multiple viewpoints, ranging from 15th Century Constantinople to present day Idaho and into the future. They do all come together in the end in a way that I felt was satisfying and possibly brilliant.

However, as with any book following this type of back and forth structure, it can take a bit to get into and to feel fully immersed in each story. This, I think, is where the breakdown happened for me. I just wasn't equally engaged in all of the stories. So for me, reading this kind of went like this:

Oh man, this beautiful, this is great, what's going to happen?? I'm so into this.

Cliffhanger

Next Chapter

A completely different story, mostly descriptions of things, although beautifully written.

I'm thinking about other, more exciting and intriguing story.

Mostly, I found myself looking forward to being done with the book. I've seen a lot of really great reviews for this one, so I'm glad it's connecting with some people. This one just didn't do it for me quite like All the Light We Cannot See. I'll still probably read whatever Doer writes next though.

This was an advanced copy provided by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

How do the stories of five young characters, some separated by hundreds of years, intertwine? Thrillingly, imaginatively, and most satisfyingly in Doerr’s epic new novel. Anna, Konstance, Omeir, Zeno and Seymour are all, at some point in the book, children facing life-altering challenges, but it is the text of an ancient tale, Cloud Cuckoo Land, that weaves a unifying thread through their stories. This was everything I hope for in a book – a story (in this case, stories) that can carry me away to another time and place.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is the very definition of a saga. It is set in the far past, recent past, current day, and future, intertwining the stories of various seemingly unrelated characters. Each character struggles in their own way just to make it through this life, with good and bad choices, loneliness and supporting family, regrets and triumphs, each of which is somehow tied to an ancient manuscript that comes becomes the golden thread throughout this patchwork literary quilt. While the beginning is a bit slow in parts, and was a bit confusing for me, I hung in there and reaped the reward. Once everyone was settled in my mind and their stories began to come together, I found myself enjoying each part and looking for the ways that they were connected. I couldn’t put it down and actually spent a whole day reading because I was hooked. If you read for the love of reading, and are willing to jump into a book and hang out for the long-haul, then I would highly recommend this book to you. Thank you to NetGalley for this advance read copy.

If you are looking for a book like All the Light We Cannot See, this is not the book. If you are someone who cannot read books with multiple characters in multiple timelines in multiple locations, this book is not for you. This book is part science fiction, part historical fiction, and a part I don't know. If you stick with the book, it will all come together nicely in the end.

All in all, once I came to the end I was satisfied with the story I had read. However, I have to admit for large parts of the book I kept asking if I should just stop reading.

With all the multiple characters, as soon as I was sucked in by one character's story it would change to another character. Eventually, I came to like almost all of the characters (one is meant for you not to like him at first).

I was given access to this book through NetGalley for an honest review.

Zetus Lapetus! Why didn’t anyone listen to Greta Thunberg? Thanks to Earth going down like the economy in 2008, Konstance’s new home is on board a spaceship headed to another planet. She’s been quarantined thanks to a mysterious disease (2020 now?) and finds scraps of paper with ancient text scribbled on it. Sort of like the story that Zeno is reading to children in the library. Sort of like the story Anna sneaks out to collect scraps of every night. Sort of like… you get it. This is Anthony Doerr, after all. Multiple perspectives, time periods, and characters is what you’re signing up for. I was intimidated by this book because I had to Sparknotes my way through All the Light We Cannot See in 2014, but if turning 30 is good for anything other than saving money on a Friday night because I’m too tired to go out, it’s finally being able to see the light (😉) and understand a beautifully written story by a talented author. Like one character’s dreams of growing wings and flying to a mystical land in the sky, this book is enchanting.

This is not my usual genre of books but loved Anthony Doer's last book so I knew I had to read this one. I really enjoyed the book. Loved all the characters and how stories can be passed through the ages. Loved his imagining of the future. I also love how he showed the importance of libraries and librarians. This is a must read and will be great for book clubs and book discussion.

I loved All the Light We Cannot See so much. When I had the opportunity to preview Doerr’s latest book, I jumped at the chance even though the title was rather odd. Turns out, I should have taken it as a warning.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is five stories tied together by another story. It starts out by rapidly switching from one plot to another and not all of them were of equal interest. Honestly, the first half of the book dragged. It was a build up to a climax that never really came. One of the plot lines was revealed too soon, so what would have been a more gut-wrenching moment, was just plain sad. The others just never went anywhere. I kept going hoping for the emotional impact other reviewers felt. Nope. Nothing.

The deep meaning and lesson from the ancient text that was to tie the book together across time wasn’t deep or meaningful.

Finally, as a librarian, I know how important books and libraries are. It just seems that sometimes when authors dwell excessively on the impact of books, libraries, and librarians, it feels a bit like pandering. Write a good book. We will promote it. No pandering necessary.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the eARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

I can often pause reading even books I like and pick them up later. But I found Anthony Doerr's novel -- Cloud Cuckoo Land -- hard to put aside. Doerr's novel is set in multiple time periods and locations throughout the world and he alternates between these universes to weave a tale about the fragility and beauty of preserved memories. Each period, including a not-so-distant future ravaged by climate change, features compelling characters who will never meet but whose lives the author skillfully connects. Their commonality is an old Greek tale woven through the book, but the story is really about how the characters --like the lead character in the Greek tale, ultimately find contentment in their lives.
I enjoyed the book tremendously and would highly recommend it to others. Great read!

Thank you to Shriner and Netgalley for the ARC of this ebook to read, enjoy and review.

This book is my kind of book. Three stories within a story, different timelines, which comes together at the end in a satisfying way. The character development is outstanding and Doerr’s descriptions really work for me. I know people think he gets a bit long when telling about a setting, but it all works for me. I shy away from books over 400 pages, but this one just flowed. It kept my interest and I loved having 3 different sets of characters to keep track of along the way. The amount of research that went into this book must have been beyond my imagination, but I know from hearing the author speak, that that is often his favorite part of being an author. Reading it as an ebook was a great advantage since it was fun to learn a lot of new vocabulary words. In short, there were times this book spoke to my heart. I love that and I loved this book. I was sad when it ended.