This book was epic. A sweeping European WW2 epic. Following the lives of a family through years and creating a crazy inter-tangled story with so much detail that I really felt the characters were alive (or had been). There were points I found unbelievable (chance meetings, help at just the right minute, etc.) but in such a heavy book I wanted them...even if it isn't perfectly reasonable, its what I needed to not break down completely into depression. And let's be honest, who could really have survived things like that without a hand here or there and some timely help, so maybe it's not as far-fetched as I thought. I was also very impressed by the author's writing style, keeping it's artistry alive even as the things she was writing of defied any kind of artistic beauty. I will be honest, this is the first I had heard of the Hungarian story in WWII and was surprised by the situation...how complicated and while just as terrible, somehow also very different from the "normal" stories. And also strange how involved they were yet how uninvolved (the laborers did get breaks to go home and could resume normal lives in between their work in terrible conditions, etc.). I think this book really hit home hard because of how much detail their prewar lives were described with... How can one stand to lose and endure so much? And how does one go back to "normal" life after so much horror and so much loss? It defies understanding. And I think the author really made this one hit home because she focused so closely on one family that you can really feel their loss...the Holocaust was horrific, but in broad arching terms you just see it as a great sorrow because its too much to absorb in such broad sweeps. To read so much about one family's loss and experience, you can compare it to your life, what those losses would be for you, and it makes it so much worse. I always feel like this after reading Holocaust stories, and this is no different, but I'll be holding off on another for awhile, because I need to recover mentally. It's beyond comprehension.

I really enjoyed this book. I can honestly say that I may not have read it without goodreads (I think the sumamry on the inside cover may not have attracted me, but all the awesome reviews on goodreads convinced me to try) and I'm glad I did. Beautiful language and storytelling. The pacing was amazing. The scope of topics covered, and covered well, was incredible. Literally everything from quantum mechanics to tragedies like the tsunami in Japan and 9/11, to bullying in school, Zen Buddhism, suicide in kids and adults, computer programming, different cultures, prostitution, a ton of nature/ecology, and so much more. I really am having a hard time believing that she fit that all into one book in a realistic, acceptable way. The research she must have had to do... I think all in all this was a great book that could appeal to a super wide number of people both in interest level and age. The only thing I didn't like as much was the end, where she pulls in some magic realism/quantum mechanics and the realism of the story disappears. I was kind of iffy on the dream sequences and disappearing parts of the diary because, honestly, the whole book up til then was solid realism storytelling and then all of a sudden I felt like the tone changed and it became a bit too metaphysical. It was too much, I thought. However, I do have a penchant for magic realism in general, so it wasn't enough to dissuade me from the masterpiece that this book is. The author writes an amazing journey in these pages.