This was a book I wanted to love but didn't. I thought the concept was absolutely brilliant and loved the way the stories wove into one another but with the way the book was written (the first half of each story first followed by the second halves in reverse order) I felt too much time was spent away from each story to even remember what the characters had been through. The only story we saw in one segment was ironically the hardest one to get into because of the dialect. Which devastated me because the post-apocalyptic future was the story I was looking forward to the most (I had seen the film prior to reading the book). The whole time I was reading this book I kept waiting for something...more. And I just never got it. I think the film did a much better job of getting the stories across—and emotionally affecting the reader. The endings of each story in the book just felt deflated and rushed, as if the author realized "oh, this has been going on for 400 pages now, better wrap it up." Absolutely gutted I didn't love this book.
