A gorgeous, complex novel that brings five seemingly unconnected life stories together through one ancient children’s story. This book jumps between these lives and thru times that range from contemporary to the 1950s to the 1400s to the far future. How a story written in ancient Greece comes into and influences these diverse lives is simply, brilliant. High recommended.

This is such a long book. There are endlessly beautiful descriptions. The book represents five points of view with an additional story. I had a little difficulty following the six different story lines because they also jump across multiple time lines as well. This is also amplified by the fact that several of the chapters are quite short before jumping time to another plot and time. Not all of the story lines are equally interesting. The six different plot lines do ultimately tie together in the end if you stay with the book. Unfortunately this book did not hold my attention .

This book is well written and has parallel stories that all connect in the end. It had a slow start for me but members of my book club raved about it.

Wonderful book. I didn't think the previous novel could be beat, but it was! I would recommend this novel for anyone who likes a deep, thought provoking read, this definitely isn't an easy one.

Multiple POV books where storylines get connected are my favorite kind of books, but they are also the books that have the most probability to disappoint me. Cloud Cuckoo Land hung between these two for me.

This is an ambitious novel, spanning multiple centuries, countries, genres and characters. For me, the build up and the base of the story took a lot of time, so much so that I almost was going to DNF this book. But after around 2/3rd of the book when the stories start getting interconnected, everything starts falling into place and I loved everything that happened after that point.

The writing is beautiful and this novel is obviously a huge undertaking. The characters are compelling, some more than the others, and the novel is well researched. But I still think that it could have benefited from being edited down. While I liked this one but didn’t love it, I have high hopes from All the Lights We Cannot See.

This is a somewhat slow burn historical fiction that follows five characters and spans three different time periods. The stories languidly work together, woven around a story within the story that they all share in some way. However, each story and POV is really well crafted on its own. There can be a bit of confusion in the construction, as the time periods and POVs do randomly switch from chapter to chapter, but the writing style is just beautiful and there is a lot of atmosphere tied into the narrative.

I was wholly immersed in this story and could not tear myself away from it. The writing evoked a lot of strong emotions from me and I felt very connected to the characters. Their stories were all so gripping and interesting. There is so much kindness and humanity tied up in these characters and I just loved them.

This is perfect for readers who love a blend of historical and literary fiction and who enjoy a complex story. It's a long read, but well worth the investment.

* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

While I didn't enjoy this book as much as All the Light We Cannot See, which I absolutely loved, I did find it to be an okay read. I found this book to be longer than it needed to be and someone of a challenge to complete. If you keep going it is worth it in the end, but it doesn't start off with a big bang.

This 622 page genre-bending tome takes readers on an epic journey spanning time and place. From the past to the future we follow a series of seemingly separate storylines that coalesce into an interconnectedness that speaks to resilience and hope, two defining traits that are quintessential to the survival of humanity.

It’s a slow-burn style that highlights moments of history that echoes throughout the present, and is predictive of the future. After the halfway point, I could not put it down with an almost determined desperation to piece together the puzzle Doerr created for us. With a nod to the importance of mythology and ethos, Cloud Cuckoo Land continues to dominate my thoughts as I seek out books of similar magnitude.

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review!

Thank you NetGalley for this book!

I was really nervous to pick this one up. I’ve just heard so much about it but was intimidated by its breadth. The length wasn’t an issue. I’ve read several that are over 1000 pages. But just the span of time, the characters, the interweaving plots made me nervous. I took my time with it and am so glad I did. What a spectacular book.

From Goodreads: Thirteen-year-old Anna, an orphan, lives inside the formidable walls of Constantinople in a house of women who make their living embroidering the robes of priests. Restless, insatiably curious, Anna learns to read, and in this ancient city, famous for its libraries, she finds a book, the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. This she reads to her ailing sister as the walls of the only place she has known are bombarded in the great siege of Constantinople. Outside the walls is Omeir, a village boy, miles from home, conscripted with his beloved oxen into the invading army. His path and Anna’s will cross.

Five hundred years later, in a library in Idaho, octogenarian Zeno, who learned Greek as a prisoner of war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on the interstellar ship Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault, copying on scraps of sacking the story of Aethon, told to her by her father. She has never set foot on our planet.

I can’t even begin to explain just how expansive this book is. The story is told with a fable woven throughout, and all the storylines draw back to this fable, but in ways you don’t expect. Even though this one took me a while to get through, it was worth it to be able to savor this one. It’s just such a beautiful book.

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley.

Doerr is a phenomenal writer, but I just didn’t find myself emotionally invested in the title book’s journey, or most of the characters. I think this could have worked a lot better without Omeir and Anna’s story- those parts almost felt like an afterthought compared to Zeno, Seymour, and Konstance’s parts.

There is so much to unpack here! Like the two previous novels of the author, the writing is beautiful. The way the author weaves the story throughout the characters and plot is awesome. It was definitely an adventure, so much to take in. Have already recommended to friends.

Cloud Cuckoo Land
Author, Anthony Doerr

This was my first read by Anthony Doerr and I started reading on @netgalley, but then purchased a finished copy to add to my collection of Doerr's novels that are still unread- All the Light We Cannot See is on deck! Yes, I know I should have read it already...

Sometimes when I read a book like this one (all 623 pages), I get a little intimidated when I try to form sentences to adequately describe the masterpiece that was this novel. That is the case here with Cloud Cockoo land that I read several months ago and still have not been able to put together a proper review and I'm not even sure that I can...

Instead I will share some highlights (not in sentences) and hope that I can do this novel justice:

~Written with the magic and love for reading and literature
~Sweeping timeline- from the fifteenth century to today
~Interconnected cast of memorable and magnificent characters
~Themes of resilience, hope, coming- of- age, environmental awareness, and "stewardship- of a book, the Earth, and of the human heart"
~Dramatic, immersive, imaginative, heartbreaking, and yet uplifting
~A true tale of humanity in all its forms
~Will make you reflect on yourself and those in your circle- will open your eyes and make you want to close them- will open and break your heart, and then open it up again
~Intertwined, but fluent genres- science fiction/ utopian society, historical fiction, mythology/ fairy tale, eco- fiction, speculative fiction- it has it all!
~Unique, atmospheric, and brilliant!

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner books for my e- arc!

Oh, wow! I did love this. It was absolutely magical when the stories started to meld together. And how all those disjunct stories were woven together was absolutely masterful. Bravo! This will be on my favorites list.

Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land is certainly ambitious--a novel spanning time and several characters. Doerr does not disappoint. The book is certainly a departure from All the Light We Cannot See. The narrative weaves between characters in the past (the Ottoman empire), the present (2020 Idaho), and the future (an interstellar colony that takes to the stars to escape an environmentally ravaged earth). All of these stories are connected through an almost lost Greek text known as Cloud Cuckoo Land. There is something here for everyone, and book lovers will rejoice. The book is a love letter to the written word, showing how books have the power to transform and save us.

I LOVED this book. It had great character development. The different points of view jumping around left you thinking about the characters you just left until you got back to them again.

I loved All the Light We Can See but I honestly couldn’t get into this book - not a fan of dystopia. This is onLu reason I gave it one star.

But reading a long long and long book with multi POVs who are weekly connected with long long long descriptions about doing nothing with the long long long storylines that are stuck in somewhere without direction make me lost lost lost during my reading journey!

I thought this book was quite a bit different from what I usually read. The historical aspect gave insight to the significance of the story over centuries. We got to see the story told from four different points of view. Two in the past one, two in the present, and one in the future. I thought the story was woven together in a beautiful way. The only thing that I have to complain about was the ending. I needed more information from Konstance and her story. There wasn't enough clarification so it felt open-ended.

Thirteen-year-old Anna, an orphan, lives inside the formidable walls of Constantinople in a house of women who make their living embroidering the robes of priests. Restless, insatiably curious, Anna learns to read, and in this ancient city, famous for its libraries, she finds a book, the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. This she reads to her ailing sister as the walls of the only place she has known are bombarded in the great siege of Constantinople. Outside the walls is Omeir, a village boy, miles from home, conscripted with his beloved oxen into the invading army. His path and Anna’s will cross.

Five hundred years later, in a library in Idaho, octogenarian Zeno, who learned Greek as a prisoner of war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on the interstellar ship Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault, copying on scraps of sacking the story of Aethon, told to her by her father. She has never set foot on our planet.

Doerr does it again with this expansive, complex, sad, beautiful novel about human suffering and the power of story to help us learn, heal and connect.

Good story!!

Description
On the New York Times bestseller list for 19 weeks * A New York Times Notable Book * A Barack Obama Favorite * A National Book Award Finalist * Named a Best of the Year by Fresh Air, Time, Entertainment Weekly, Associated Press, and many more—one of the ten books that appeared on the most lists for 2021

“If you’re looking for a superb novel, look no further.” —The Washington Post

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All the Light We Cannot See, comes the instant New York Times bestseller that is a “wildly inventive, a humane and uplifting book for adults that’s infused with the magic of childhood reading experiences” (The New York Times Book Review).

Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.