Mecca

TL;DR: You should read this book as a physical copy, not an ebook!

This was a stunning book, but - like Honoree Jeffries' The Love Songs of W. E. B. DuBois and Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land - it's one that demands a physical copy to be read and absorbed as intended. I struggled reading this on my Kindle; the book jumps characters, stories, and years (like Sequoia Nagamatsu's How High We Go In The Dark, it's almost more a collection of linked short stories than a traditional novel), but all these threads are elegantly and powerfully woven together, and I know I would have benefitted from being able to flip back more easily. I wanted it to be easier to answer questions like “I know I've heard this name before, what was she doing last we saw her?” and “We've heard a description of a man who sounds like he might be this character we're just now bringing into focus - is that right?” It's by no means a bad thing when I have to work to understand a book - especially, in cases like these, where I'm getting such a vivid, raw glimpse into a world that's far outside my own lived experience - but in my own experience, an ebook isn't the right conduit, and it inhibited what I know I'll get out of this book when I read a physical copy.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Well-written and thought provoking. Evocative storytelling and strong character development made this book beautiful, haunting and fascinating throughout.