A review by lenny_ray
The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt

5.0

So many reviews berate this book for disparate plot-lines that don't go anywhere and don't eventually get tied together. These observations are not untrue. But, for me, they are precisely the things that make this book so beautiful. Our selves, our relationships, our worlds, our lives, are fragments. Some of them sad, some of them beautiful, some of them magical, and some of them downright weird. Many of them are pieces we share with someone else's story. And not all the pieces add up - not to 42, and not to any other answer to life, the universe and everything. There is no single ending, because there is no single beginning. You could say, oh yeah, what about death and birth? I could say, well what about that tree you planted and what about the moment your parents met? Trying to connect every dot and join every jigsaw piece is the road to misery and insanity.

This book is an echo of that. It is not one complete story, but it is many little ones. A story about a brilliant inventor that the world has forgotten. A love story. A story of a father and a daughter. A story about time travel. A story about friendship. A story about madness and genius. A story about dreaming impossible dreams. It is about being an incomplete human being living an incomplete story in an incomplete world. This is not a book to read wondering 'What happens in the end?'. It is a book to read for what is happening now and what may happen next. And maybe the two things will connect. Or maybe they won't. Either way, it's wonderful.