The Lacuna in Crazy Challenge Connection

Sep 25, 2015 Colleen rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction

The language used is gorgeous and the way the memoir is made up of different writing styles (ie. a boy's diary, a young man, newspaper articles, archivist's notes, etc.) is very well crafted. You can feel the character grow up through the way the author wrote his writings.
'Lacuna' has many meanings in this book, but is most definitely a missing section of text. It's not just one side of the story - there are newspaper clippings and letters after all - but it's about gaps we all have in our own ...more

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Sep 16, 2020 Chaitra rated it really liked it

Shelves: orange-prize-winners, pen-faulkner-award-nominees

I liked it more to begin with than at the end, to be sure. But, I like Kingsolver, and even when I don't particularly agree with or care for what she's saying, I like how she says it. It's not that I disagree with the subject in this case - even though I dislike communism, I also really dislike McCarthyism. But Harrison isn't the most compelling of protagonists. He's remarkably passive. He doesn't take a stance. He's naive and shocked and in denial about what is happening around him. But then ag ...more

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Feb 22, 2015 Jess Penhallow rated it liked it

Shelves: usa, mexico, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s

500-odd pages later I still don't really know what to make of this book. One thing I will say is the writing was stunning and at times hypnotic. The author is so good at bringing the varied settings in this novel to life.

Another thing I liked was the themes and the fact that the author's moral conscious is apparent. Hr perspective on a fraught time in history and made me angry, sad and sympathetic at once.

What let it down was the plot. It was all over the place and often cut off sharply at the ...more

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