Book Review: The History of Love

It's that time again when I talk about Book Club...or really just the book.

This month, it was my turn to pick and I chose The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.

Here's the description from Amazon:

A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.

Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love. Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that very book. And although she has her hands full—keeping track of her brother, Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah), and taking copious notes on How to Survive in the Wild—she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With consummate, spellbinding skill, Nicole Krauss gradually draws together their stories.

This book was such a great book, if I do say so myself.  As I've mentioned before, I am one of those people that like a happy ending all tied up in a neat package with a bow on top.  And if I don't get that, then I at least want all my questions answered.  And if I don't get that, I typically don't loooove the book.

I didn't get all my questions answered in the book and it wasn't your traditional happy ending.

HOWEVER.

It satisfied me.  It was heartbreakingly sweet and I just loved Leo.  I think he was a really well developed character.  One of my favorite things he says is "I like to think the world isn't ready for me, but maybe the truth is that I wasn't ready for the world."

I think that about myself A LOT.

Really, Krauss does a great job developing all of the characters.  I loved how it switched voices throughout the story.  I found myself really looking forward to the switches to finish up the individual's story.  The book was really well written, the characters were well developed, the plot was great on so many different levels. 

This was such a great book.

Read it.  And let me know what you think.

Or don't and miss out.  Your choice.

That's all for this review.  Have you read this book?