The Book of Jonas

when i first heard that the next book for the BlogHer Book Club was for a book called The Book of Jonas  was instantly intrigued. and i definitely stayed captivated throughout the book.

The Book of Jonas is about a young boy whose town and family is destroyed during an errant U.S. military operation. through an international relief organization he is sent to America and is taken in by a family, forced to adopt the ways of American culture.
because he has been through such a traumatic time (and no one really knows how to talk to him), he is forced to see a therapist and tells him about a soldier who helped save his life. the book then goes on to interweave the two stories of Jonas and the soldier’s mother, Rose.

i love when writers are creative with the way they tell stories and Stephen Dau is no exception. the book set up as if you are attending a funeral, or like a Requiem. it starts with processional and invocation and ends with a benediction and recessional. so that in itself was captivating to me because you don’t usually think of attending a funeral service as a work of literature.

the only problem i had with the book is that it took me a while to really get into it because it skips around a lot. one minute you are hearing about Jonas leaving his country on the flight to America and the next he is talking to a therapist about his family and then back to meeting his American foster family for the first time. the chapters, if you can call them that, are really really short. like a paragraph-a page short. and so the ideas get split up quite a bit. and since i am not the most patient person, i just wanted the story to kind of stick to a point and keep going instead of bring up a intriguing part of the story only to change subjects.
but that’s just my personal preference.

despite all that though, The Book of Jonas is a beautifully written story that leaves you thinking.
it’s kind of dark, and the ending is not a peaceful conclusion, but it is still good all the same.
so if you like those kind of stories, this book will definitely a great one to pick up!

 

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.