Review – Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr (5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction
Length: 637 pages
Publisher: Scribner
Release Date: September 28, 2021
ASIN: B08TRMSR3Z
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed ebook from library
Rating: 5/5 stars
“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.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this as an ebook from the library.
Thoughts: I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to. The story is complex and in the beginning I did struggle a bit to keep the characters and all their time frames straight; you jump around within a characters’ life, as well as the different characters being seated in different timeframes completely. However, I quickly engaged with these characters and their stories and really enjoyed them. I loved watching how all their threads started to weave together and how one book influenced them all so much.
This is a masterfully done story that was creative and unique. There are heavy themes about loving books, the influence of books, finding happiness/purpose, and human effects on the ecology/climate of our planet.
I feel like this book deserves a longer review but I am short on time right now. So, I will say I really enjoyed Doerr’s writing style and really loved how this story was woven together.
My Summary (5/5): Overall, this took me a while to read but I really enjoyed every minute of it. I would definitely recommend it! I enjoyed all the characters’ individual stories and how this looked at both the past and the future. I thought it was very clever how everything came together. I plan on picked up more of Doerr’s books in the future.
