Book of Clouds is a haunting, masterfully wrought debut novel about a young woman adrift in Berlin, where a string of fateful encounters leads to r...
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Sep 04, 2010
Ursula
rated it: 
Book of Clouds is the story of an ex-pat Mexican woman living an aimless existence in Berlin. The writing is poetic at times but often veers in the direction of pointless neurosis. The main character, Tatiana, is mildly interesting but as the story goes on, it becomes obvious that she's loveless and bored in nearly every aspect of her life. Written in first person, it's easy to assume the author is basing Tatiana on herself so when the sex scene is described in exceedingly chaste words, it appea
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Apr 12, 2009
Judy
rated it: 
Why did this get magnificent reviews--a young / pretty author? So much of the writing was not good, the scenes obvious constructs.
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May 29, 2011
Kerfe
rated it: 
After a few chapters I thought: a ghost story. And indeed at the end the narrator notes that "there was little difference between clouds and shadows and other phenomena given shape by the human imagination."
Is there any substance to this story? It's not just that Tatiana sees and feels and hears ghosts; every action, every thought, every word seems haunted by the past and the horrors of humanity. There is no anchor, no context to make anything real. Changes are too vast More...
Is there any substance to this story? It's not just that Tatiana sees and feels and hears ghosts; every action, every thought, every word seems haunted by the past and the horrors of humanity. There is no anchor, no context to make anything real. Changes are too vast More...
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Mar 09, 2010
Shinelle
rated it:
Book of Clouds is well-written, in that it employs some beautiful metaphors and intriguing turns of phrase. The author plays with language to great effect. The story may ring true to anyone who has studied abroad, and certainly I now know more about the German transit system than I ever expected to know. The problem with the novel is conflict. There really isn't any, or at least none sufficiently compelling to necessitate the novel's existence. The only questions posed get answered without
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Jul 07, 2009
Sam
rated it: 
"Book of Clouds" is one of the must-reads of 2009. As Wendy Lesser wrote in The New York Times, "First novels by young writers who see the world with a fresh, original vision and write about it with clarity and restraint are rare enough to begin with. When you add in the fact that Chloe Aridjis’ “Book of Clouds” is also a stunningly accurate portrait of Berlin, as well as a thoughtful portrayal of a young Mexican Jew drifting through her life abroad, this novel becomes requ More...
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Aug 29, 2009
Lee
rated it:
Essentially a brooding, atmospheric illumination of the city of Berlin. The city is certainly the co-main character of the novel, at least, and it feels here like a dark, dense stain sinking into the fabric of the universe. It is the shadowed spot left on the wall of the empty apartment above the protagonist that is not covered up even when a new tenant arrives to rehabilitate the space. It is the secret underground bowling alley of the Nazis, or the Stasi, it makes little difference which, wher
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Nov 09, 2011
Jessica
rated it:
Tatiana is a Mexican expat living in Berlin at the dawn of the 21st century, trying to distance herself from her family and avoiding the development of any new relationships. She takes a part-time job transcribing the notes of an aging historian, and becomes involved with a man she is sent to interview.
About 30 pages in, I had a suspicion and had to flip to the author biography. Yup, Chloe Aridjis is a poet. She has a PhD in poetry, actually. That's something that really shows in this More...
About 30 pages in, I had a suspicion and had to flip to the author biography. Yup, Chloe Aridjis is a poet. She has a PhD in poetry, actually. That's something that really shows in this More...
Dec 10, 2009
Christine
rated it:
Sometimes you end up reading a book you're not in the mood for. Like Mexican dinner when you're craving Thai, it's just not satisfying, even when it's delicious.
That's how I felt about Book of Clouds by Chloe Aridjis. Though the pacing is a bit slow, it matches the tone perfectly. I read it, dying for something to happen. Anything. In the last chapters, something does happen. I won't tell you what, but I was past caring.
Tatiana, a Mexican expat living in unified Berlin, takes More...
That's how I felt about Book of Clouds by Chloe Aridjis. Though the pacing is a bit slow, it matches the tone perfectly. I read it, dying for something to happen. Anything. In the last chapters, something does happen. I won't tell you what, but I was past caring.
Tatiana, a Mexican expat living in unified Berlin, takes More...
Apr 05, 2009
Mythili
rated it:
Chloe Aridjis’s lithe debut novel is the brooding, dreamy tale of one young Mexican woman’s years in Berlin, the city where she has burrowed herself to escape the crowd of siblings and expectations awaiting her at home. After placing first in a nationwide language exam, Tatiana is awarded a year’s room and board in Germany. She quickly dissolves into Berlin life (“On some days I felt attached to the city and assimilated, on others like some kind of botched transplant with a few renegade veins”),
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Feb 04, 2011
Kasey
rated it:
Admired this without loving it... though some pages/passages I really did adore. It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea: extremely interior and meditative, and not big on plot. I usually like those things, and, like I said, I was swept away by some sections; the narrator's voice is so strange and unlike anything else I've ever encountered in fiction; she's believably and (to me) sympathetically neurotic and obsessive and all her emotions are thoroughly ambiguous. And the descriptions of Be
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Sep 07, 2011
Andrew
rated it:
A very quiet, meditative book about a Mexican woman adrift in Berlin. Tatiana is alienated from her family and her friends, cut off from the rest of the city, uninterested in forming a relationship with anyone. She gets a part-time job doing transcription work for a historian, goes on a few lacklustre dates with a fairly nondescript meteorologist, becomes slightly obsessed with a mentally ill woman, avoids her neighbours, develops insomnia. The book meanders along like this for most of the 200 p
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Jun 14, 2009
Tracey
rated it:
This story was dark and depressing but I found it compelling enough to finish it. Perhaps I simply felt there had to be a point beyond the odd meanderings and daily events in the main character Tatiana's life. As yet, I have not discovered what that could be...Tatiana is a Jew, her family lives in Mexico and owns a deli. While attending the Goethe Institute studying German she places first in the Institute's nationwide exam and is awarded one year in Berlin, free room & board, and a citywide tra
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Apr 12, 2010
Athena
rated it:
Berlin: A city that ran on its chronometric scale on a Book of Clouds
While I was in Paris, I went to a book reading at the bookstore Shakespeare & Company. The place was completely packed with books and people and the atmosphere was warm and friendly. The magical environment of Shakespeare & Co., and the good wine certainly contributed to the success of this enjoyable evening.
The author Chloe Aridjis read from her debut novel “Book of Clouds.” I bought the book the same e More...
While I was in Paris, I went to a book reading at the bookstore Shakespeare & Company. The place was completely packed with books and people and the atmosphere was warm and friendly. The magical environment of Shakespeare & Co., and the good wine certainly contributed to the success of this enjoyable evening.
The author Chloe Aridjis read from her debut novel “Book of Clouds.” I bought the book the same e More...
Apr 23, 2009
Gemma
rated it:
Don't judge a book by its cover. This might be a good principle to adhere to, but that cannot stop me from picking books out or deriving pleasure from a book because of the cover or as is the case with Book of Clouds because of the unusual size and uneven edges of the pages (a style I have only seen on books published in the USA).
But, nein, it was because of more than aesthetics that I enjoyed this book. It is after all set in Berlin. And the main character has a love of the city's t More...
But, nein, it was because of more than aesthetics that I enjoyed this book. It is after all set in Berlin. And the main character has a love of the city's t More...
Jan 22, 2010
Sonia
rated it:
I thought this book was beautiful and poetic, with a strong European sensibility. I don't know much about the author's background but she seems more European than Mexican or American.
As far as I can tell Book of Clouds has gotten fantastic reviews in the US and the UK and they are well deserved. There's always going to be someone who takes issue with an author's representation of a city -- but then they're missing the whole point about fiction.
I've passed this book on to friends and More...
As far as I can tell Book of Clouds has gotten fantastic reviews in the US and the UK and they are well deserved. There's always going to be someone who takes issue with an author's representation of a city -- but then they're missing the whole point about fiction.
I've passed this book on to friends and More...
May 17, 2009
Michael
rated it:
This quick, lovely novel mixes subtle shifts of magical realism with passages of quotidian simplicity. The narrator's self-imposed isolation is the perfect vantage point for commentary on a city's changes and how they mirror individual growth. A foreigner in Berlin, a foreigner in the world, a foreigner in her own body, she is frightened by the attacks and subsequent wounds which force a city, and a person, finally, to change. With wit and humor, Chloe Aridjis plays with the symbol of passing cl
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Sep 04, 2009
Allyson
rated it:
not sure what is up with the different editions but this was 209 pages but by Black Cat press.
A strange book, almost like a dream. I think it's ideas escaped me and though it was well written, it was too stream of consciousness or the main character too glum to hold my interest or really care too much what happened with her. It was like reading a page from her journal, thoughts meandering and I was not sucked in so much as just rolling around in her words without too much investment. More...
A strange book, almost like a dream. I think it's ideas escaped me and though it was well written, it was too stream of consciousness or the main character too glum to hold my interest or really care too much what happened with her. It was like reading a page from her journal, thoughts meandering and I was not sucked in so much as just rolling around in her words without too much investment. More...
Jun 16, 2009
Oren
rated it: 
oh my god this book is terrible! only the author's extremely privileged personal connections (her dad is a super-big-deal mexican writer and diplomat) could POSSIBLY explain the positive critical attention this godawful book has gotten. it is dishonest, badly written schlock catering to an uninformed american audience that wants to think berlin = impossibly low rents + edgy nightlife + nazis nazis nazis still everywhere. ignore the gushing ny and la times reviewers and check out jessica joffe's
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Jul 07, 2009
Sam
rated it:
"Book of Clouds" is one of the must-reads of 2009. As Wendy Lesser wrote in The New York Times, "First novels by young writers who see the world with a fresh, original vision and write about it with clarity and restraint are rare enough to begin with. When you add in the fact that Chloe Aridjis’ “Book of Clouds” is also a stunningly accurate portrait of Berlin, as well as a thoughtful portrayal of a young Mexican Jew drifting through her life abroad, this novel becomes requi More...
Aug 20, 2011
A very quiet, meditative book about a Mexican woman adrift in Berlin. Tatiana is alienated from her family and her friends, cut off from the rest of the city, uninterested in forming a relationship with anyone. She gets a part-time job doing transcription work for a historian, goes on a few lacklustre dates with a fairly nondescript meteorologist, becomes slightly obsessed with a mentally ill woman, avoids her neighbours, develops insomnia. The book meanders along like this for most of the 200 p
More...
Mar 26, 2009
Sara
rated it:
Aridjis is an excellent writer. You get completely inside Tatiana's head, but when I was finished, I was so glad to live in my own head. Told in the first person, the ex-pat narrator's obsessive thoughts and reclusive ways are a little suffocating, but her descriptions of everyone and everything she encounters in Berlin are interesting. In fact, Berlin, East and West, becomes the "character" she has the closest relationship to. Her loneliness is distressing, but not to her. Maybe she'l
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Dec 18, 2010
Sam
rated it:
Didn't know what to expect but was charmed by the blurb and then delighted by the text. Book of Clouds by Chloe Aridjis is about a young Mexican girl who speaks German and lives in Berlin. Nothing much happens. She works on transfering words on tape to a computer for an elderly professor and very rarely has a date but the book is nevertheless entrancing and absorbing, sometimes sad but often witty, a little literary gem well worth finding.
Sam North - author of 'The Curse of the Nibelung'
Sam North - author of 'The Curse of the Nibelung'
Nov 15, 2010
Mimi
rated it:
this is an amazing first book, very interior, somewhat full of magic realism. I liked it so much, I'm going to immediately reread it because it's
just that kind of book, lots of bitsl symbolism that I want to check out again. It is a good book to read twice. The book works on several levels:
it is a story about a young woman trying to escape her life by living in a foreign country; the city she has chosen is Berlin with it's buried,past
violence and the problems of bringing togethe More...
just that kind of book, lots of bitsl symbolism that I want to check out again. It is a good book to read twice. The book works on several levels:
it is a story about a young woman trying to escape her life by living in a foreign country; the city she has chosen is Berlin with it's buried,past
violence and the problems of bringing togethe More...
Aug 02, 2009
Nathan
rated it:
This is a delightful and beautifully written book about a young Mexican woman living in Berlin. The writing is gorgeous throughout and reminds me of W.G. Sebald (is there any higher praise?), but with a sense of humor. The novel's structure is poetic, in that it is build around a pattern of metaphors and images instead of around a traditional "plot" and that Aridjis makes such a structure compelling and enjoyable is admirable.
Aug 06, 2010
Lorna
rated it:
It is fascinating to see how much green ink certain books inspire. To suggest that looks and youth alone (and btw, by today's publishing standards, is mid to late 30s still regarded as youth?!) are to account for every magnificent review is ridiculous. After two decades of working in publishing in New York I can list, off the top of my head, at least ten or twenty good looking debut novelists who did not get nice write ups.
May 10, 2010
Juanita
rated it:
As much as I loved the images in the Dream Life of Sukhanov,
I found images evoking more emotion and feelings in this book.
Chloe Aridjis as with Olga Grushin takes you into truly
believeable lives of others. Some of the most beautiful
writing that I have read. She grew up in Mexico City and
the Netherlands and has a PhD from Oxford. And such a
beautiful name.
I found images evoking more emotion and feelings in this book.
Chloe Aridjis as with Olga Grushin takes you into truly
believeable lives of others. Some of the most beautiful
writing that I have read. She grew up in Mexico City and
the Netherlands and has a PhD from Oxford. And such a
beautiful name.
Jun 01, 2009
Christie
rated it:
Probably a bit more cerebral than my mostly bedtime reading really allows for, but I enjoyed this book. It's always good to have characters who cause you to think. This book suffers, though, from the spreading of the book's mood to the reader's life. Boy, was I feeling lethargic and "inert" all the while I read this and it didn't feel great.
Jun 06, 2009
Brian
rated it:
Aridijis created a beautiful portrait of Berlin, making it the star character in this novel. For those who fancy themselves the flanuer (or like to see a city through such eyes), it's a worthy read. Sadly, the other characters in the novel are far less developed and the supposed climax of their interactions falls short.
Aug 02, 2010
Samantha
rated it:
A truly poetic sensibility, gorgeous understated writing.
Not everyone sees the magic in this book - I've been surprised by some of the very literal readings, ie young Jewish woman in Berlin. It is SO much more than that! I love this novel and recommend it to everyone I know. All my writer friends love it too.
Not everyone sees the magic in this book - I've been surprised by some of the very literal readings, ie young Jewish woman in Berlin. It is SO much more than that! I love this novel and recommend it to everyone I know. All my writer friends love it too.
Oct 09, 2010
Jem
rated it:
Has delightfully read "Book of Clouds", written by Chloe Aridjis. The story captivates your mind at all levels, from identifying with the main character, to Europe's scenery and thinking. Fascinating and intriguing must read, even for those wishing to learn more about, or travel to, Berlin.
