So I don’t want to get into every story in this book because I don’t want to spoil. But wow. This book was really really good. Even though I thought the part two that switched to Los Angeles lost some of its charm, I still thought this was a 5 star read and really enjoyed it. Instead of giving a blow by blow of each story, I am just going to focus on my favs:
“The Line”-This story follows Pushkin and his wife Irina and them living through the days of the last Tsar and then eventually moving from their village to Moscow where we find out that Pushkin has a particular talent of standing in line. When Pushkin realizes he has a chance to move on from Russia to something new though, that is where his standing in line comes in handy.
“The Ballad of Timothy Touchett”-This story follows two people who love books though they go about using rare books that may eventually cause one of them issues.
“Hasta Luego”-Honestly this started off so heartwarming and went really dark. I loved it from beginning to end. A traveler meets a fellow traveler who he feels a kinship with after they get stuck in New York.
“I Will Survive”-I didn’t love the ending to this one, it just made me feel sad after we get the reveal of what the one character (Nell) “spying” led to.
Then the book shifts over to Los Angeles:
“Prentice”/”Olivia”-One thing about these stories is that the characters reappear throughout. I tended to like Prentice and Olivia’s stories the most. The second half as I said, wasn’t as great to me as the part one.
I read this for CBR17bingo, “Migrant” because the first story story talks about characters migrating from Russia to America.