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Famous Men Who Never Lived is published by Tin House Books.
I love the premise of this book- refugees from another universe, similar to ours but markedly different, who can't go home but also can't grow in number because their world is probably destroyed. And I think it did a pretty good job of living up to the premise- I especially enjoyed the interviews with UDPs. The things like slang being different, or people forgetting the topography of the city is different, were great. And I think the book dealt well with the concept of grieving a world gone. It helped, also, that the UDPs weren't instead of refugees, but rather a specific kind of refugee, and were compared to more "traditional" refugees.
While I really enjoyed the plot, however, I found that I didn't particularly care about any of the characters. It felt like it could have been about any of the 156,000 and we could have hit the same ideas. I feel like I would have enjoyed the book a lot more if it was a bunch of ephemera discussing the differences and experiences of the UDPs and this world.
(Side note: I do feel my reviews have been getting shorter. It's hard!)
I love the premise of this book- refugees from another universe, similar to ours but markedly different, who can't go home but also can't grow in number because their world is probably destroyed. And I think it did a pretty good job of living up to the premise- I especially enjoyed the interviews with UDPs. The things like slang being different, or people forgetting the topography of the city is different, were great. And I think the book dealt well with the concept of grieving a world gone. It helped, also, that the UDPs weren't instead of refugees, but rather a specific kind of refugee, and were compared to more "traditional" refugees.
While I really enjoyed the plot, however, I found that I didn't particularly care about any of the characters. It felt like it could have been about any of the 156,000 and we could have hit the same ideas. I feel like I would have enjoyed the book a lot more if it was a bunch of ephemera discussing the differences and experiences of the UDPs and this world.
(Side note: I do feel my reviews have been getting shorter. It's hard!)
