The Atlas of Us
Tracy Buchanan
This month's Literary Fiction book from BooklyBox was The Atlas of Us. Props to them for picking this book; I thought it was the most enjoyable I've received yet.
This book is the perfect example of reasons not to judge a book by the cover. When I first got it, I thought it looked/sounded like a cheesy love story but it was so much more than that.
Yet another book where the chapters go between time and characters (sigh) it wasn't too bad, though. The book starts by introducing us to Louise, who is travelling to Thailand to search for her estranged mother after a giant tsunami hits and no one has heard from her. While the search for her mom continues, our main story of Claire (in the past) unfolds and the two stories eventually entwine. Claire is a travel journalist who just found out she's also infertile. Her husband has a different way of coping with her infertility: denial. He wants her to go through another round of treatment, but Claire is slowly accepting the fact that children are just not part of her future. After their big fight, Claire goes to Exmoor for her job and meets the 'crazy' James family, which includes hunky stranger Milo.
The story is so detailed that I don't even think a blurb can do it justice. There are plenty of great, relatable characters and plot twists that I didn't see coming. I also felt like the subject matter was pretty heavy... there were a few messages about life that came out of this story, especially on how to cope with tragedy.
There were parts (characters) that I didn't like (Milo), but that didn't stop me from enjoying reading this book. At one point, I almost thought the author was going to take it in a completely different direction and make some psychological thriller out of it (which would have been cool), but in the end Milo wasn't the bad guy that every one thought he was... even though he lies A LOT. Overall, good read.
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