Sunny Zhang Zhang itibaren Nimbhore, Maharashtra, Hindistan itibaren Nimbhore, Maharashtra, Hindistan

Read this overseas when I was studying abroad, left it in a "take a book, leave a book" bin at a youth hostel. Boring, pretty silly and unecessary romance built around too many cliched plot devices.

I've been reading this book for over three months now. It normally takes me three nights. I have about seventy pages left and I have to say goodbye and move on...though I HATE not finishing a book. But that stubborn refusal to move on from one book has inhibited me, so to HWOSG, I say...next! The first part was brilliant. I loved it. Eggers is a great writer. But the second part...man...I read maybe ten pages a day for awhile, then cast it aside. An hundred pages or so could have been removed from the book and it would have been all the stronger for it. Eggers' strengths: dialogue, internal process/urgency, originality of thought, description. Eggers' weaknesses: too many characters with not enough backstory; too many self-indulgent rants; uneasy transition between scenes. Again, I stress this--great writer. But I preferred You Shall Know Our Velocity over this...which I'm told is not the majority viewpoint. Ah, well.

Was hooked from the very beginning - interesting concept for a world, executed well -- and found myself wishing for more at the end!