My favorite way to get to know other cultures is through fiction written about regular people from their authors. I have been wanting to learn more about people from the Middle-East, as I don't want to be guilty of the de-humanization that so many of my fellow Americans are.

This book was excellent for that, and excellent in general. I learned a lot about sons and fathers, about middle-eastern people and how the things which are important to them are, of course, no different than what is important to my family, and about some of the everyday life experiences and decisions faced by people of different societal levels in Afghanistan.

The story itself, the pain and beauty and friendship and love between the fathers and sons, is so moving that I spent time laughing and crying, and have put this on my "read-on-a-regular-basis" list. I also think this should be a required book for all high school students, as it covers such a range of important subjects (family, friendship, guilt, forgiveness, deep love).

This book is about a man who resembles a fictional JFK-type man, acknowledging the similarities in the text. I don't always like political novels, but this book really pulled me in. The main character, Kerry Kilcannon, is idealistic enough to remind me of "The West Wing", and real enough not to be sappy and annoying. He has secrets, a difficult past, and more honest conviction than the average politician.

The story is quick and easy-to-read, the characters are diverse and interesting, but easy to keep track of. The author digs into each main character's life a bit, so we can understand why they act in the ways they do.

There is a bit of a surprise at the end, which really pulls together events in Kerry's life, and things end pretty much as you would expect them to. My rating of average doesn't mean that I am not going to read the rest of the books about this fictional politician, because I am! Only that this is not the highest quality literature I have read.

I have heard radio shows talk about good, easy, "summer" books and I would rate this as one of those, and recommend it to anybody.

Each writer has a different style, and some I really love, and some take awhile to learn to love (like Charles Dickens). I think that Ondaatje will be one that takes me awhile to learn to love, as it is NOT a simple and direct telling of a story. I also believe I will have to read this book one more time to really understand it.

That being said, the book is a wonderful description of some very realistic characters. Well, as far as I can guess from their being from Sri Lanka. The author shows many different kinds of love and loyalty, and that love and loyalty can be disguised under many other layers. There is also enough detail about the historical time and place to make me want to learn more about Sri Lanka. That is always a good sign.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book as a "light read" but something for when you really want to dig deeply into some lives, some happenings, some history, and some ambiguity.

As a story, this book is okay (twice). It was not the kind of book I "couldn't put down" until the last few chapters, when I absolutely HAD to know how things were going to turn out in each universe. For a while, I'd think one life was better; then I'd be sure it was the other. I am convinced the author did exactly as Irina did when she .... [edited to remove plot spoiler].

Aside from the story, which many reviews have described so I won't, there is the technique! What fun it must have been to have included some of the same details in the corresponding chapters, and what fun it was to "discover" them. The little rubber ring from a car used as a "wedding ring" in one chapter causes an excuse for a long, romantic walk in the opposing chapter, for example. What was most clever was the way the final chapter [edited to remove plot spoiler]. Not just anybody could do that!! Of course, I found myself favoring one life over the other, but I think that's the point to some extent...and then to question your choice. Is great passion worth hurting something so very stable? Is stability worth giving up great passion? In the end, either way, Irina lived in a way that satisfied her.

I received this book from BookBrowse (I won it - thanks BookBrowse!) so I felt I should write a review of it, and now I want to read "We Need to Talk About Kevin" by the same author because I really do like her style of writing. She thinks I'm smart (doesn't dumb down her prose) and I appreciate that.