Meanwhile, glimpses of Eleanor’s childhood and family history in Taiwan unfurl, revealing long-held secrets, and Eleanor starts to realize that she will never be able to escape her grief, or her family, despite her wildest attempts. While the immigrant experience sections felt a bit clichéd to the core, I found Eleanor parents' backstory (Jing and Rita) very compelling. A riveting, wise, and singular novel about grief, love, longing, and the mysteries of family, A Quitter’s Paradise will linger in your heart and mind.

Overall I enjoyed this book, I just wished the timeline was a bit more defined or linear (personal preference, of course). He may not find the precise answer, but his quest for it, in Go’s elegant and incisive prose, is perpetually captivating. Lito, the story’s dying protagonist, prepares his circuitous yarn by asserting “the best way to fit one story among other stories is, I think, always wise to consider. This isn’t the worst book I have ever read—the author does have talent at writing—but it’s down there in the bottom fifteen percent.A masterful portrayal of grief, depression, and the skeletons of your familial role showing up in adulthood. The death of Eleanor’s mother has her questioning everything—her childhood, her marriage, her career. Their relationship seems to have been mildly strained in the beginning, but it becomes increasingly obvious to me that Eleanor is struggling with the impacts of her mother’s death, leading to some of the decision she makes throughout the novel. asks] what it means for a first-generation daughter to stop striving, to want a meaningful life on different terms.

As grief isn't relentless, its fragments are scattered throughout the story, reminding ones the several facets of this sentiment. Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. A funny and endearing story made up of vivid characters, A Quitters Paradise tackles grief and complicated family dynamics.

Eleanor Liu is a “chronic avoider”—she runs from every difficulty life presents, but how long can she outrun grief?

Yet readers also see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath his self-protective exterior. It was confusing because the timelines would switch at random, and the back and forth jumps meant most of the character development was lost. The floundering in science and in romance, certain bits of wry prose, and Eleanor’s quirkiness and emotional stuntedness also reminded me of CHEMISTRY.

The writing in this one is fairly accessible; I finished the book over the course of two days while I was in vacation in California. Instead we get a whole book of Eleanor’s avoidance behaviors with no hope for improvement, and reading it was a bleak and unenjoyable experience.

These chapters enrich the characters by allowing space for their individual stories to be told and provide insight into how Eleanor’s upbringing influences her present life.I personally struggle with litfic that isn’t really plot driven — although I did love the writing style and flow of the book through different perspectives. A committed teacher tries to enlighten Demon’s seventh grade class about how the resource-rich countryside was pillaged and abandoned, but Kingsolver doesn’t air-brush his students’ dismissal of this history or the prejudice encountered by this African American outsider and his White wife. In the past timeline, we get to know Rita through her backstory, which plays a huge role in shaping her relationship with her daughters in their childhood years.