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louisds's review
3.0
Actually, 3.5 but I need to round it down for the following reasons.
1. It is a very good book, but not the page-turner, intense true war story advertised in the praise of the back cover. The pace is slower than I expected and the sequentially described perspectives of the different characters break the rhythm.
2. The first 100+ pages were frustrating for me because I could not figure out who the main character was. Then you discover she is who she is but so many questions, the most basic ones you can have on a character, remained unanswered for so long that it altered my reading experience. I don't know, maybe I missed it...
Overall, I enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to people interested in war journalism, Afghanistan, the post-9/11 world, etc.
There is something that reminded me of L'orangeraie by Larry Tremblay and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot with Tina Fey. Not a bad combination in my book.
1. It is a very good book, but not the page-turner, intense true war story advertised in the praise of the back cover. The pace is slower than I expected and the sequentially described perspectives of the different characters break the rhythm.
2. The first 100+ pages were frustrating for me because I could not figure out who the main character was. Then you discover she is who she is but so many questions, the most basic ones you can have on a character, remained unanswered for so long that it altered my reading experience. I don't know, maybe I missed it...
Overall, I enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to people interested in war journalism, Afghanistan, the post-9/11 world, etc.
There is something that reminded me of L'orangeraie by Larry Tremblay and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot with Tina Fey. Not a bad combination in my book.
astroneatly's review
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
Into the Sun is a lyrical, prosaically purple, while sometimes it suffers from flatness. Michiko Kimura is the narrator who begins writing a book after 3 of her friends were assassinated in a Car bomb in Kabul. The book is very character driven, each chapter revealing new insight into each of the characters present. The characters are mostly developed rather well, if not a tad cliché. Justin is a abstinent Christian who, playing football in high school (the author gives a vague description of a football match where “the player catches the ball-“ and never really describes their positions, etc. I think authors should try to stick with what they know instead of trying to archetype their characters.)
Anyway, so, 9/11 breaks out, and Justin and his frenemy Clay vow to join the Marines. Justin isn’t old enough i guess, and is jealous that other people get to fight his war, and he gets injured.
The three people in the car were Justin, Alexandra and Clay… and yet at the beginning Clay was assumed missing, and it was Idris, their driver, who was the identified bystander, but Béchard changed it for some reason. Clay works for K&R, he investigates kidnappings and ransoms. Alexandra kinda likes outlaws, so her backstories a bit dull… the author gives a passionless and affectless description of a man raping her. It had very little resistance behind it and felt more forced than anything, much of his writing has that very same formulaicness as a Paulo Coelho novel. Michiko doesn’t have much background, she studied biology in college and somehow ends up writing journalism in Afghanistan. Justin is deciding on two candidates for a scholarship, and Clay wants Idris to have it… but Justin perceives the urgency of Sediqa having this opportunity, since in her country the Taliban is about as impregnable for women as the American right-wingers are.
Some people, I think, never really left Iraq.
“Solitude, I’d learned as a child, is not a static state in a singular element, but a movement, even a journey, that can go in as many directions as we imagine.”
Anyway, so, 9/11 breaks out, and Justin and his frenemy Clay vow to join the Marines. Justin isn’t old enough i guess, and is jealous that other people get to fight his war, and he gets injured.
The three people in the car were Justin, Alexandra and Clay… and yet at the beginning Clay was assumed missing, and it was Idris, their driver, who was the identified bystander, but Béchard changed it for some reason. Clay works for K&R, he investigates kidnappings and ransoms. Alexandra kinda likes outlaws, so her backstories a bit dull… the author gives a passionless and affectless description of a man raping her. It had very little resistance behind it and felt more forced than anything, much of his writing has that very same formulaicness as a Paulo Coelho novel. Michiko doesn’t have much background, she studied biology in college and somehow ends up writing journalism in Afghanistan. Justin is deciding on two candidates for a scholarship, and Clay wants Idris to have it… but Justin perceives the urgency of Sediqa having this opportunity, since in her country the Taliban is about as impregnable for women as the American right-wingers are.
Some people, I think, never really left Iraq.
“Solitude, I’d learned as a child, is not a static state in a singular element, but a movement, even a journey, that can go in as many directions as we imagine.”
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