Finished this up last week too.
I liked it overall. Malia is 5 and I simply cannot fathom how she would survive on her own. Granted, she didn’t have to spend her early years in survival mode, but STILL. Also, I’ve always wondered what an average person’s earliest memories are. Could I remember what happened to me at 5 years old, much less the details?
The jumping back and forth in time and the choppy flow — I can’t figure out why he would write it like that. As I mentioned before, I did the audiobook so maybe something was lost in the listening. I almost got the sense that he was trying to write it like he was processing the memories as they happened. He jumps to the reunion because that was the biggest highlight and then goes back to flesh out the details? I don’t know! But I feel like the emotional part of the book would have had a stronger punch if we weren’t jumping around so much.
Overall, a very good read. Like BK said, the book has a lot of heart to it. For me that outweighed the writing style. I love how good his adopted parents were. I love how much work Ms Sudth put into the ophanage home. His mother’s faith was beautiful. It displayed the depths of a mother’s heart and I just loved that.
My heart was sad about his brother. That’s a weight to carry to know that his frantic search for his baby brother may have lead him to be careless on the trains. I imagine you can’t help but carry that in the back of your mind.
