Book Review: Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This is my first review that I ever written in Goodreads. English is not my first language so please bear with me xD

It was such a difficult read at first. I need to go back and forth between the book and dictionary for the first 39 pages. The story gets better by the time I reached Robert Frobisher's chapter. I really love how the story intertwine with the next story, like a Matryoshka. Adam Ewing's chapter is just a journal in Robert Frobisher's letter. Robert Frobisher's letter is just a part of Luisa Rey's chapter. Luisa Rey's chapter is just a novel in Timothy Cavendish chapter. Timothy Cavendish chapter is just a movie in Sonmi-451's chapter. And Sonmi is valleyman's God in Zachry's chapter.

The style of writing of this book is different for every chapter. The way it's written, and everything. It's kind of irritating to read some chapter... Like Adam Ewing's chapter for the amount of archaic words that's used in this chapter. Or Zachry's chapter in which the chapter written with so many apostrophes and the use of 'wrong' words... (*telled instead of told, knowed instead of knew, badder instead of worse, etc.) After a few pages of reading Zachry's chapter, I just realized that 'un' is equivalent to 'one'. I need to reread the whole thing again :/

I enjoyed reading Luisa Rey's and Timothy Cavendish chapter the most because the style of writing is pretty 'ordinary' and I'm accustomed to read such text.

I love how cool sonmi-451's chapter is. Removing every 'e' before the letter 'x' is a brilliant idea. xcited. xultation. xpect. xec. Those words sounds cooler and more... futuristic I suppose?
I also notice how the writer change the word 'light' into 'lite'.

The end of the chapter is always end in a cliffhanger (*except in Zachry's chapter), which is good because it keep my curiosity alive and drive me to keep reading.

After the Zachry's chapter end, the other chapter ends too and they linked to each other. I think it's awesome to read how a story is connected to each other. How the character in the book is as curious about the tale as the reader is. Sonmi-451 want to continue watching Timothy Cavendish disney, Timothy Cavendish want to read the rest of Luisa Rey's novel, Luisa Rey's want to read the rest of Robert Frobisher's letter and Robert Frobisher sent the rest of Adam Ewing's journal for Sixsmith to read.

It was such a great reading experience. It feels like I'm reading six different book and living six different lives, in six different eras. This book never bore me... (*after the page 39 that is..)
It's book about life and death, good and evil, justice, humanity, greed, love and life. So many aspects, so many things to learn from it. Such a great book. I hope everyone will enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed it xD



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