Missing Puzzle Pieces

While I cannot say that I did not enjoy this book, I can say that the ending left me a little confused and disappointed. I felt that the ending seemed rushed and did not fit accordingly with the rest of the book, from the build up to the (predicted) climatic ending, to the character development, it just did not seem to have the closure that a conclusion should offer. Here's why:

1. That one chapter by Bird
The book consistently followed a pattern of rotating between the three narrators as previously mentioned. However, all of a sudden in the last quarter of the book, Krauss throws in one random chapter narrated by Bird, Alma's little brother. Although throughout the novel, I found Bird interesting, I felt as though this chapter seemed random and only inserted because Krauss could not come up with a more creative and consistent way to make the characters cross paths. I did not understand why all the detail about Bird was provided for his role that turned out to be less than expected.

2. Random details
Krauss gave us a lot of details throughout the book and after you finish, all you can think is "why??". One major example of this was all the emphasis on the Jewish religion, through Bird's practices, Mr. Singer's religion, and Leo Gursky's experiences as a young boy. These details are given throughout the book, and then nothing really happens with them to make them important. For example, Bird building a boat to save Alma from the flood, only for his boat to be destroyed by the local fire department as a safety hazard. These details confused me and took away from the focal points of the novel.

3. Very misleading title
This is not a love story. This became very clear early on, and that is okay because some love novels are overrated anyways. But my question about this fact, is then why all the talk about love? There is so much detail about tragic endings to loving bonds such as the deaths of Alma Mereminski and Mr. Singer. Yet, while I understand how such events and bonds can have aa significant impact on the characters we are getting to know, the ending of the book does nothing with these details in respect to our two living characters. So why spend so much time making this a major part of each character's life, to not conclude on the topic in the ending??

4. All those threads got a bit too tangled
At one point in a previous blog post, I mentioned that the characters were like interwoven threads that although separate lives were operating both individually and together to make the "bigger picture". However, in reflection after finishing the book, I think there are a few missing pieces to that grand scheme of things. Krauss added so many details and created this novel that virtually consisted of entirely character development. But in the end, I feel that she rushed the ending and did not know how to stop considering there was minimal plot and so many threads with so many details that she could not tie them all off in a way that connected them all and gave meaning to them all. If it were not for the way that the last chapter is written, I would have felt as though a whole chapter or so was missing from the end, and that is somewhat disappointing for me.

All in all, I have learned this year that an ending can either make or break a book. In some cases such as Handmaid's Tale, I have felt that the book is too good for the ending to be what it is. However, in other cases such as Song of Solomon, I have believed that the ending is significantly better than the rest of the book and is essentially the only part that I enjoyed. In this case, I feel that the ending broke the book for me. It was a good read that I enjoyed, but not having an end to the characters that fits the emotional connection created between the reader and characters does not provide satisfaction, or give purpose to the characters and their ambitions in the novel; and I feel that the ending of this novel did not go nearly far enough in doing the characters the justice that they deserve.