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Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

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Brief synopsis (no spoilers)
The novel is really a series of nested novellas. You read half of one story, then it jumps forward in time and you read half of a new story. Not like Inception, where you have the same people having dreams within dreams, though. Whole new people, new stories, new epochs.

 Category
Fiction

 Why I chose this book
Rated highly on the library website

 My personal opinion (the review)
The way the stories were tied together, and the diversity of writing styles and sheer imagination displayed make this novel and author very impressive. However, it's oppressively long, the language is bad, and the depravity is rampant. Don't waste your time.
It felt like the author wanted to write 6 novels, but ran out of ideas with each one, so he stopped at the novella size. Then he split the spine of each book and sandwiched them. And to make it seem like they were tied together, he rearranged some names and concepts, with references spanning stories. That felt contrived, though. Just my perception, not a factual account.
Really neat concept, I enjoyed the story, and am fully impressed by the effort. But skip it. There are so many good influences out there. This isn't one of them.

 Warnings
Language: many severe uses of the worst profanity
Violence: frequent, and some fairly detailed
"Adult" situations: frequent, and some fairly detailed
Death: frequent, and some fairly detailed

 Movie rating equivalent
R

 Protagonist description
Too many to summarize

 Point of view of story
Usually first person, in letter format. But sometimes third

 Book length
Enormous. Leviathan.

 Story flow
Each section really dragged at first, but picked up after a few pages

 Grammar and spelling issues
None, it was impeccable

 Character connection (no spoilers)
No, thanks

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