People of the Book

I was completely engrossed in this book until the last 100 pages or so. I liked the structure of a contemporary story framing the imagined history of the Sarajevo haggadah, and how in some ways the contemporary story was quite similar to the past stories. I liked the way Brooks was able to imagine the unknown (and probably impossible to know) history into details of people's lives–people who lived and suffered through disaster while they were focused on ordinary concerns. The end of the book was disappointing, though. The contemporary story took a turn for the unnecessarily dramatic and started seeming more like a Hollywood thriller than a story about real people. Still, I am now a confirmed fan of Geraldine Brooks.