Excessively long and convoluted for me. I loved all the light you cannot see, and this new book did not measure up to that for me.

This story is written so well and it’s so moving. It’s an old theme, but super well done.

Came together at the end, might be good to read it again

One of my favorite books of all time

I rejected this book several times before purchasing it because I’m not into sci-fi or fantasy, and frankly the title was a turn-off for me. By the second chapter, however, I was hooked. The past, present, and future plots are woven together with incredible skill, the character development is outstanding, and the ending is superb. I bet you’ll love it, too.

I loved all of Doerr’s previous masterpieces. This one was such a disappointment. I felt like I was reading an whacko-environmentalist sermon disguised as a novel. I’d give it zero stars if I could.

An incredible tale woven by a master storyteller.

So very interesting how several storyline threads are woven into a tapestry which is antique and modern at the same time.

Loved it

This book is hard to invest in due to the multiple characters in different times, past, present, and future. You spend a significant part of the novel's first half trying to build empathy with the protagonists, but their point-of-view is short and seemingly unconnected to the other segments. It feels to me that the use of classic Greek is an intentional throwback to the oral history tradition you encounter with The Odyssey and Iliad, which I believe is the intention of this novel. A story presented as a tale told about a history lived. The value of the work is not in the individual lives but in the totality of the woven tapestry, with each life contributing color and texture to the whole. In this recognition, stories from before the common era got to us in 2022 because many people touched them, cared for them, and passed them on. The strength of humankind is our ability to tell stories that carry forward and become knowledge and entertainment many times removed from the source. The book is a bit of a slog until you invest in the characters. The end, however, is worth the work. A connection that, in the end, frees the future protagonist.