Thursday, June 19, 2008

number9dream

This is David Mitchell's second novel, but the last one of his that I've read. I liked it the least out of all his, although I didn't dislike it in general. It has to be said that David Mitchell has an amazing imagination and writing style - styles really since he uses different for various parts of the book. He does that in Cloud Atlas too, but that one is easily my favorite of his and indeed one of my favorite books ever.

So, number9dream... the story is simple enough, about a boy who comes from a small Japanese island and who moves to Tokyo to find his father, who he never met. His time in Tokyo is never boring, he meets a lot of strange people, some good people, and some very weird things happen to him. Oh yeah and he imagines a lot of stuff too. All of this makes for a very colorful story, but I must admit that I read most of it while thinking 'what the hell is going on??'. I started to really like it about 2/3 of the way in, but that could have been linked to the fact that I happened to be way more relaxed then so perhaps I was simply more focussed.

If you haven't read any of David Mitchell's novels, I wouldn't start with this one. And if you have and you have and you liked them then you need to read this one no matter what I say here.

This book completes the Numbers Challenge for me - it was extended until August so I had the chance to squeeze this one in. Thanks to Callista for hosting... and extending!

Other challenges this qualifies for: A-Z Challenge, 888 Challenge, Man Booker Challenge

2 comments:

Tasha said...

I haven't read number9dream, but I enjoy David Mitchell, even though it takes me a long time to read his books. Cloud Atlas is one of my Top 5 reads of this year so far, and I doubt it will lose its spot on my list. Have you read Black Swan Green? I liked that one.

joanna said...

Cloud Atlas was indeed fantastic. Yes, I've read Black Swan Green and really liked it even though it was so much more normal - I loved how some of the characters overlapped though!