By far the best book I've ever read (& now heard)

The title says it all, simultaneously the funniest, saddest and cleverest work of fiction I've come across thus far. Couldn't recommend it enough.

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great work

slow start but stick with it, a wonderful story which touches on the horrors of the not to distant past.

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A compelling adventure through 2 layered stories

you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll smirk, you'll gasp. the language and dialogue is playful and somehow rings true more than most works of fiction in any discipline. the different layers of story will give sharp observations and insight on the different states of hunan being.

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Awesome book, awesome performance!

I chose to listen Everything is Illuminated, because Veritasium recommended and oh boy I'm not disappointed at all :)

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great story great performance

a beautiful story if a little hard to follow. Very funny and deeply moving. The performance from the two actors is amazing

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Fans of the movie will enjoy this

I am a big fan of the movie of this book, and having visited Ukraine every year since 2003, I have met many Alex’s and his Grandfather (with a few “seeing eye b*tch”es) so was looking to hopefully learn more about the whole back story through the book.

The actually story is a mixture of 3/4 stories in one…. Fans of the movie will be familiar with the part of the story that is Alex accounting Jonathan Safran Foer being in Ukraine with them as they search for a woman who saved his grandfather.

This comes and goes between a story of the history of the Jewish Shtetl of Trochenbrod, starting over 200 years ago with the death of a man in a accident in a river, with the river giving back his daughter, who is adopted by an elderly man in the village, and accounts her growing up, her marriage and then moved on the our Hero’s grandfather and his growing up in pre-war Ukraine, and how he escaped death.

For the first 1/5 of the book it follows the movie and the parts about the girl from 200 years previously is interesting, but around the end of 1/3 part of the book it gets really dark (death, rape, abusive relationships, adulatory…. And this is before we get to WW2 part of the story), and unsettling, and you do long for it to get back to Alex and his grandfather to lighten the mood, but even that does not help.

All in all a hard book to put down that does have a habit of going off in places, but not for the faint hearted in places.

Rather disappointing ending, but still a great story.

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Could not finish!

This was for a book club. Struggled with the story line. Our whole book club agreed.

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gimmick

Abandoned after an hour. Not really sure how this gets the ratings it does. Maybe you need some connection with the story line. Someone further up said it was gimmicky . I agree .

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really bad

always subjective but I found this one awefull. just nothing to keep you interested had to give my way through it.

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