Anna

Loved this book! I heard it was a must read and I wasn't disappointed. I was already familiar with some great quotes from the book and finding those in the text felt like rediscovering something dear and precious.

It's a light read with a lot of great jokes. Word of caution: you end up laughing out a lot and having to explain to people around you what's so funny. But there's also deeper stuff here, Adams manages to keep it hilarious but also hits the nail.

Definitely recommend this one to everybody, doesn't matter if you like sci-fi or not. Read it!

I absolutely loved this book! The plot makes it impossible to put down. I had seen the movie a few years ago and I remembered the general ending, but no details. This didn't spoil the book for me at all, the story is woven with such detail you cannot stop reading even if you have guessed what is going to happen next. I enjoyed how richly the main characters were painted, how deep were their emotional portraits.

I can highly recommend the audiobook, narrated by Julia Whelan and Kirby Heyborne.

Maybe the best book I've read in 2019, definitely among the top three.

Dalton describes gruesome subjects like child abuse, drug dealing and dismemberment with such lightness and comedy that can only be achieved by viewing these subjects from the naive perspective of a child. Despite the dark setting Dalton's protagonist gives the impression of a normal, happy and curious kid. It's impossible not to root for him.

The story revolves around the two boys and is woven together beautifully. The children get hurt, stumble and fall, get up and continue to try and make the world a better place. And they succeed! For me it radiated with a feeling on hope and love for the universe.

I honestly didn't get this one. The beginning is thrilling, the setting is original, the ending is unexpected. But between the initial suspense and the climax there's not much happening. Several characters develop unexpected relationships with each other, a few come with some sort of self-discovery. Apart from some funny details and a few interesting interactions the novel just drags on and on, I found I had to really struggle to plow through.

I felt that the story was too slow and painfully predictable. It's obvious even from the blurb how the main characters are going to end up. Then there's a painfully slow buildup to finding out why they got separated in the first place, for unknown reasons it takes them forever to finally come clean about their breakup, and when the author finally shines light on that night the whole thing is too predictable.

The book is a nice love story and very entertaining. I enjoyed references to Italy and Italian language since I am a big fan of both. The plot got me hooked up and I was rooting for a happy end even though you know since page 1 what is the ending of the father story.

What bugged me was the naiveté of the book. Everything is portrayed as black and white: the Allies are good (oh no, it's OK that they bombed a monastery, they're fighting the Germans!), the Germans are bad, Italian food is good, English food is bad, Italians are devoted and happy etc. The amount of these naive assumptions got pretty ridiculous throughout the book.