mmz's review
3.0
As a story about life in a small town in western Massachusetts, this book isn't bad. Unfortunately, it tries to be a lot more than that. Many chapters begin with vaguely interesting historical vignettes about the ancestors of the family at the center Then we have the story of Hector as he moves from rural Colombia to Bogota to Miami to Connecticut and finally to Grandville. At first, I found his story the most compelling of all, even if it was all too predictable how he would eventually figure into the main story. Unfortunately, once Hector gets to Grandville, his voice disappears, making one wonder what the point was of giving us so much of his story to begin with. So I had to ask myself, why did Klein throw so much else into his story?
gobblebook's review
4.0
This is a very enjoyable read. It may not be the most original book ever written, but the characters are lovable, the writing is absorbing, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
In many ways, it's unoriginal: it's the story of a small town in Massachusetts. There's a typical array of characters: the old man whose family has been in the town for generations and who's life hasn't changed for years, the teenage girl trying to break out of stifling small-town life, the newcomer busy-body who upsets the balance, the father trying to make his daughter live out his own ambitions, etc.
Klein is a little heavy-handed about the philosophical point he is trying to make in this book. The book focuses on one particular year in the lives of a handful of characters, but there are occasional tangents into the town's past history and the actions of characters very far away. The point of these tangents is to demonstrate that all actions have effects hundreds of years down the road and thousands of miles away; everyone and everything is connected. The story itself demonstrates this rather trite point quite clearly. Unfortunately, Klein hits the reader over the head with this point by making a philosophy professor rather suddenly become an important and heroic character at the end of the book, while expounding on the point that all actions are connected and all past actions have an effect on now (hence the title). I would have enjoyed the book much more if it had just been titled "Grandville, Massachusetts" and if the philosophy professor hadn't become the hero at the end by giving little mini-lectures on philosophy. (The fact that Klein's philosophical credentials are touted all over the cover doesn't help this perception - it makes it clear that he considers this novel an opportunity to teach a philosophical lesson.)
Those gripes aside, I still think the book deserves 4 stars. The writing is very engaging, the characters are charming, and the story was entertaining. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book.
boehmek's review
4.0
Definitely not what I expected when I read the endflaps, but still a good read. I found the way the stories were intertwined was interesting.
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