Cloud Atlas

I can recognize the skill and care that went into crafting six different styles of narrative, but I wasn't drawn in by the stories very much. The Sonmi tale was the most engaging, but it was a bit silly and concluded with something akin to “it was all a dream,” which I always find annoying. Don't get me invested in a character and a story, then invalidate the whole story at the end!

The rest of the stories I just couldn't generate much interest in, and the central tale's use of phonetic dialect was so obnoxious I skipped most of it.

I'm also not sure this is a novel, so much as six slightly related short stories. The overarching theme that allegedly connects them seems fairly shallow to me, and the mechanisms by which they refer to each other also pull the old, “Ha, it's not real” trick that is so irritating to me.

In short, I can see why people like this, but it didn't work for me at all.