A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Beautiful prose writing, but ultimately a very depressing book. It is the story of war and what it does to ordinary people, and the things they need to do to stay alive, from sex-trafficking to selling out your neighbors to the enemy. The only bright spot is Havaa, but otherwise the plot jumps around in time, I didn’t particularly come to care about any of the characters, and a few days after finishing it, I’m not sure I remember what happened to any of them. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either.
Description: In a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as Russian soldiers abduct her father in the middle of the night and then set fire to her home. When their lifelong neighbor Akhmed finds Havaa hiding in the forest with a strange blue suitcase, he makes a decision that will forever change their lives. He will seek refuge at the abandoned hospital where the sole remaining doctor, Sonja Rabina, treats the wounded. For Sonja, the arrival of Akhmed and Havaa is an unwelcome surprise. Weary and overburdened, she has no desire to take on additional risk and responsibility. But over the course of five extraordinary days, Sonja’s world will shift on its axis and reveal the intricate pattern of connections that weaves together the pasts of these three unlikely companions and unexpectedly decides their fate.
Read by Colette Whitaker.
The Welsh Bookworm 