Cloud Cuckoo Land gives new meaning to the term epic saga! It's been ages since I've read a book that was so inventive, intricate and insightful. The writing is of course top notch, filled with those turns of phrase that make you want to stop and take notes even when you know that there's no way you can take a break from a story that is so intriguing it's hard to put down.

It takes a bit of work to get started in this story. The characters, times, and backgrounds are so disparate that it's hard to imagine just how the author will bring them together, or if he will at all. A bit of patience in the beginning will be well rewarded by what turns out to be a plot that is smoothly seamless and utterly gratifying. A testament to the value of libraries and the importance of stories, Cloud Cuckoo Land is an excellent read and an enthusiastic recommend.

Oh my goodness!!! I don't know how he thought up this story! It is great. When I started reading I thought what is this. I am so glad I finished it. I had all kinds of emotions while reading. It makes you think about ways to save the earth! He is such a good writer! Now is one of my to go to authors!!!

With NetGalley I have been introduced to new authors which is a wonderful thing.. Anthony Doerr is an author I have heard good things about. So I figured why not read Cloud Cuckoo Land even though it is out of my usual reading real,. The characters were very imaginative, and compelling. There were several stories, withing stories. Crossing time lines, centuries and going to different places. Zeno young boy that lives in Idaho and later is an old man named Konstance is written in the future. Zeno is a very brave and caring character. Then there is a character named Seymour whose story might break your heart. He and the older Zeno meet in the same time period.
I tried to step out of my reading realm and I just couldn't really get into this book fully. There was a lot of fantasy, sci'fi which I myself is not a fan of. There was a lot of different stories going on and once which left me totally confused. Maybe it is just me. If you are a lover of fantasy, sci'fi than Cloud Cuckoo Land is for you. This would not defer me from reading any other books by Anthony Doerr in the future. Thank you Net Galley , Simon & Schuster for the advanced copy. I only wished I could have enjoyed it more.

Beautifully written with themes of hope, resilience, and love of a good story, Cloud Cuckoo Land is a literary triumph. The braided story with past, present, and future timelines is complex, but Doerr is such a masterful writer that the reader is not confused and remains entranced with each character and situation. The ending was perfect and the only flaw was that it came too soon.

Maybe it’s just because I am a fervid reader who has happily and rapaciously been devouring books ever since I could recognize two words together on a page. Maybe it’s because I am a professional librarian. Whatever the reasons or my possible biases, I find Anthony Doerr’s “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” to be a work of absolute beauty. His prose feels like poetry, and the tale it constructs is a wonderfully memorable one. It’s that of a fictional Greek comedy that manages to touch the lives of several individuals over the span of several hundred years, from the fall of Byzantine Constantinople to a fast-gentrifying lakeside town in Idaho, to a colony ship hurtling through space. Across these disparate locations and periods and in the midst of very different challenges, the core characters find themselves comforted, inspired, infused with purpose, and more. The power of a single book is on gorgeously full display here, not merely in Cloud Cuckoo Land’s narrative, but also in the way that it swept me as a reader away deep into its pages enveloped me in an interconnected tale that resonated down to my very core.

For all those who adored “All the Light That We Cannot See,” the wait for Doerr’s next read was definitely well worth it. And for those who are encountering this author for the first time, I enthusiastically recommend this to you with every fiber of my bibliophile being.

"All my life, he thinks, my best companions cannot speak the same language as me."

Cloud Cuckoo Land is the second novel I've read by Anthony Doerr, the first being his acclaimed novel, All the Light We Cannot See. I recall liking the book well enough, but also remembering it to be too long and at times overindulgent.

So with his new novel being longer, I was feeling pretty cautious, especially with the knowledge that this was to follow the lives of 5 different characters. Suffice it to say, by the end of this 600+ page novel, I was pretty moved by the story Anthony Doerr created and would put this way above All the Light We Cannot See.

To summarize, Cloud Cuckoo Land follows 5 characters whose lives are tied together by the "novel" Cloud Cuckoo Land by the early writer, Antonio Diogenes. We have Zeno and Seymour whose stories take place primarily in Lakeport, Idaho. There's Omeir and Anna in the area of Constantinople in the 1400s. Lastly, there is Konstance onboard The Argos in Mission Year 64 and 65. We really do follow them throughout their lives, and by the end it does feel like you've been with them for a lifetime; understanding their feelings and struggles on a very personal level. It's a lot to take in but I'm happy to say it all wraps up in a very generous, heartfelt way.

I'm not going to spoil anything as I think the journey is worth the price of admission, but as per usual I'll be going over some general grievances I had, especially early on.

This novel is broken up into 26 parts (Prologue and Epilogue included), with each Part introducing a chapter of Diogenes' story. In the first two-thirds, we are constantly switching back and forth between characters and periods of time. Until we're down to that last third, it's unclear why this had to be the way to tell the story. It's very jarring to be pulled out of something that has you by its grip only to be sent elsewhere. And while the shift does work by the end, when everything is falling into place, it feels mostly clunky at the beginning.

Some Parts, and this is going off of Kindle, last all of 5-10 pages before moving on to the next. While I understand the intent with including the sections of the Diogenes' story to tie in, it wasn't that enjoyable to read as you're just getting into the proverbial meat and potatoes before your plate gets taken away.

The overindulgence comes into play when some of the Parts start in one time period, switching between the two characters who inhabit that time, before switching to a new time period and a different character, then back to the characters at the start of the Part. It's at these points where nothing really ties any of these characters together and you wonder why the switch is happening so drastically and where the connection is. It's like whiplash.

Of course, the ultimate connection ends up being how Cloud Cuckoo Land affects the lives of our characters. If you have a love of books and the written word, you'll obviously fall head over heels for this novel. Anthony Doerr has a love for books that's very clear and concise and very moving. It's a beautiful thing to read a novel about a novel that has lasting effects.

I'm happy to have had the chance to try Anthony Doerr again and I applaud his willingness to try something as ambitious as Cloud Cuckoo Land. While I had mixed feelings at the beginning, I was very pleased to find myself misty eyed by the end and feeling like I made a few friends along the way.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this novel! I definitely need a physical of this.

Simply marvelous. This book was a slow start for me, but once the stories started ramping up, I was hooked and couldn’t put it down. If you like deep, emotional works of fiction that span generations and continents, there’s a good chance you’ll love this book. Bonus points for lovers of the Greek classics, although if you don’t read the classics don’t let that stop you from trying this book. I’ll be thinking about Cloud Cuckoo Land and its characters for a long time.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is an entirely unique book about the journey and not about getting to the end. There are several stories, several timelines, several themes, several settings, at least 3 centuries where it is all taking place, and all in the style of rotating narratives. Each story invokes sympathy and captivates the reader. All of the stories are connected by an ancient text, Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, where a man Aethon is first a man then spends 1 year as a donkey, 1 year as a seabass, and 1 year as a crow. Snippets of Cloud Cuckoo Land are interspersed throughout the character's stories as tales they are telling or tales they are reading as solace and comfort. Stories they were told as children and now they are telling their own children and grandchildren.

Although there were many good things in this novel, if we are talking about pure enjoyment I would have to admit that I did not have much of that. Like many, I'm sure who loved All The Light We Cannot See will be eager to read what is next from Anthony Doerr. I wanted to love it but there was so much happening between the characters, the timelines, the themes, and the settings that I wasn't able to fully sink in and love anything in particular. It was all so much that I could only really like many things.

I was very disappointed in this book which surprised me as I loved ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE. it was hard to get into and didn’t hold my interest. I didn’t finish it.

It only happens about once every 15 or 20 years: Poisonwood Bible. Lonesome Dove. Now Cloud Cuckoo Land: a book that I will talk about forever, a book that changed the way I think about the world.

How much should I write? There is a magic in discovering it for yourself, how all these pieces fit together to answer the most essential question we are all facing in 2021: is the world ending? And if so, how do we go on?

Anthony Doerr addresses this question in no expected ways: by telling the story of Anna, an orphan living behind the walls of Constantinople under siege in 1409, who climbs a rock wall to discover hidden treasures; Omeir, a "demon" boy with a cleft palate, who is conscripted into the invading army because of the strength of his beloved oxen Tree and Moonlight; the story of Seymour in Idaho 2020, a budding environmental terrorist after the loss of his beloved great owl friend; and of Zeno, an 86 year old man hiding in the library as Seymour plants his bomb; and of Konstance, on a space station hundreds of years after the end of Earth, hurtling towards a planet that she will never live to see.

And interwoven among them all, a myth of Aegon, the shepherd who longs for a better world, who sets off to find that elusive Eden in the sky, Cloud Cuckoo Land.

It reads like three stories in one; the story of Constantinople, Omeir and Anna; of Idaho, Zeno and Seymour, and of the space station, with Konstance; and amidst them all, the myth of Aegon.

There is writing so gorgeous that I had to stop and read it again; writing, especially, about the power of story itself, how stories can be magic, can save our lives, can give our lives meaning.

Above all else, this is a story about our longing for a better world, what we owe to each other in this one, and whether it is possible -- even a little bit possible --- to hope, in the face of unimaginable hardship, that a better world might still exist, maybe even, possibly, not so far away as Cloud Cuckoo Land, not so far away as the clouds in the sky.

Read it to have your heart broken and maybe, possibly, put back together again.

All the Light you Cannot See was one of my faves. I could not wait to dig into this book and see what followed it!
Cloud Cuckoo Land was VERY different than anything I have read in a long time. There were parts that were hard to keep up with, but for the most part I absolutely loved it all. The overall result was a soaring, pleasing epic tale spanning eras in time including the future. The cast of characters was amazing.

We have Konstance - living on a spaceship in the not too distant future
Zeno and Seymour - their paths collide in present day Idaho
Omeir and Anna - their paths collide in Constantinople 1453
Weave in a myth told by Zeno and invented by the author that ties things together.

I am so fortunate to have had an ARC of this fantastic piece of literature.
Loved it.

ARC provided by NetGalley and the publisher, Scribner, in exchange for an honest review.

First off, I must note that I’m a huge fan of Doerr. All the Light we Cannot See is one of my all-time favorite books. When I finished it, I wanted to hug the book. That being said, I wanted to love this book as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t.

From the very start, the book feels clunky. The three timelines and the quotes from the titular book just don’t work for the first 75% of the book. It feels disjointed from the outset, almost as if I was attempting to read four completely different books at once. While I often enjoy books with varying timelines and multiple character viewpoints, I felt that this book just didn’t weave them together in a cohesive manner. Despite this, I pushed through and kept reading.

Midway through the book, I found myself bored and seriously considered not finishing the book. I’m a voracious reader and have only once stopped reading a book, so this is highly abnormal. The storyline and characters just didn’t take hold of my imagination. It felt overly drawn out, as if Doerr got lost somewhere in the middle. I often found I was skimming through paragraphs instead of diving into the details.

However, the last 25% of the book feels more like Doerr at his best. The characters finally take shape, the timelines are explored in a more interesting fashion, and pieces begin to fall together beautifully. Sadly, the prior 75% of the book wasn’t really needed to explore the final 25%. It is almost as if the ending could have stood alone as its own story rather successfully.

Overall, I find this book to be mediocre at best. I have given it 3 stars mainly based upon the strong ending. While it may be unfair to compare this book to Doerr’s prior work, I can’t help but to do so, leaving me feeling disappointed. If you are new to Doerr’s work, I recommend that you skip right by Cloud Cuckoo Land and instead pick up All the Light we Cannot See.

#netgalley #scribner

I received an ACR of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion. This book revolves around an ancient Greek story and it's affect on different groups of people. There are several storylines going on at one time. Two storylines revolve around Anna and Omeir who live in 15th Century Constantinople. Two more storylines revolve around Zeno and Seymour who live in 2020 and the final storyline is about Konstance and her family who live in the future on the interstellar ship Argos. I had no prior knowledge of the book before I started it. In the beginning, it was very hard to keep track of all of the different characters and their separate stories along with the Greek translated story that was also thrown in there. For Anna and Omeir, we only read about their present day struggles and what happens in the future. For Zeno and Seymour, we start in present day but then at times go back in time to learn their history as well as their future. Because of the many characters and the switching around of their stories, it was confusing at times and it took me a long time to connect with this book. Even half way through it, I was thinking about abandoning it. But I'm glad I stuck with it, because after the halfway point is when I did start connecting the dots and getting invested in the story. I like the way all of the characters end up being intertwined in the end and I enjoyed trying to figure out how that was going to happen. To me it seems like the character Seymour has Autism. I like the way the author explains his perspectives on life so others might be able to understand why he acts like he does. It was also a good book in that it was a historical fiction, present day fiction, and science fiction all rolled into one. So overall I gave it 4 stars because it did leave me fulfilled in the end, but it took a while for the book to draw me in.

First…thanks to the publisher, author and NetGalley for the Advanced Readers Copy of the book.
This tale was slow in starting, jumping amongst centuries and characters. It appears to be three disparate stories without connection. While each was well told it took a while to start to see the connections. Masterfully written, it is worth the time it takes. Take your time and enjoy the journey.

I truly enjoyed this book. In the beginning, it took me a minute to orient myself with how quickly it jumped between characters and timelines, but it wasn't long before I was fully engrossed and finding myself thinking of the story even when I wasn't reading the book. For me, thinking about it even once I've stepped away is the mark of a great book. This is one I would definitely recommend.

Doerr surpasses ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE. What an incredible work. He stretched his writing muscles with this one, balancing five different POVs, which he proved with ATLWCS, but the time periods! He is still the best at chacterization, and the style of short chapters makes this novel easily consumable.

One of the best authors doing it today. What a follow-up, and definitely worthy of another Pulitzer.

Anthony Doerr continues his beautiful style of writing that we fell in love with during ‘All the Light We Cannot See’. While I loved his style of writing, this one jumped around a lot through multiple narrators and multiple timelines in the present, past, and future which made it hard to stay engaged for me. I loved the use of Greek mythology to tie all the storylines together. Overall, it was very imaginative and clever how all the connections were revealed towards the end.

Thanks to #NetGalley, Anthony Doerr, and Scribner for the e-ARC of #CloudCuckooLand in exchange for an honest review.

A lush story told from multiple POVs—past, present and future—all thematically influenced by one ancient text that ties them together.
Engaging and intriguing. I enjoyed the time jumps and the multiple story lines. The writing is lovely, the historical settings well crafted and detailed.

Thank you to Scribner Books and NetGalley for the gifted copy. I read the advanced digital copy and I enjoyed the book.

The reader catches glimpses of different people's lives. The language is beautifully written. I am already thinking of gifting this book to several people for Christmas gifts. I know who would love this novel.

This is not an easy read. It takes place in three widely separated time periods, and its multiple protagonists, too, are dissimilar, a least on first glance: 13-year-old Anna and young Omeir in the 15h century, teenager Seymour and octogenarian Zeno in contemporary times, and teenager Konstance in the distant intergalactic future. Initially, I found it difficult to follow the seemingly unrelated tales and wondered why they weren’t presented in three separate, continuous stories, rather than moving back and forth from one story to another, from one time period to another, from one character to another. But, finally I began to see the connections and, so, became engaged through the characters and the themes: a book (the story of Aethon), libraries, relationships, struggles, endurance, danger, hope, and more. The writing itself is impressive, as one would expect from Anthony Doerr, the author of All the Light We Cannot See.