really good book, if you erase the last two charapther.
The end is unacceptable for me, it justerase the meaning of all the pages before.

One of my favorites. The writing was wonderfully elegant, the characters perfectly molded, and the content both funny and moving. Now I need to tackle it in French...

I loved this book!

This 3.5 stars for me, it would have been more sometimes for me the book seemed to waffle to much. That being said there are points in this book that are pure joy and an insight in to life through the eyes of a twelve year old and fifty five year old which were so beautiful in their writing that you couldn’t not be affected by it. I particularly liked the passage about summer rain and the moment that Renee went to dinner Kakuro. Life is to be enjoyed in all its forms whatever or whoever you are. At times an emotional read and I’m glad I have read this and I will in the words of Paloma “search for those moments of always within the never”.

Wow, an excellent book! At the start I found it difficult to get engaged, but soon enough I was drawn in and connected to the characters, and eager to find out what happened next. The final two thirds of the book I have read in the last 48 hours, after dawdling through the first part over a couple of months!

I loved this book. I love the complicated language. Found myself reading some of the chapters two...three...Four times!

My trusty dictionary companion kept me company through most of the story. At first I picked up this book because I thought it was about Sonic the Hedgehog. I learned fairly quickly that this was not the case. Renee reading complicated Russian Literature...no way Sonic just loves golden rings!

Thank goodness I kept reading! Beautiful story with memorable characters. Now I need to read the authors other book, ASAP.

What an odd book. This is not something I would normally read, and yet I'm not sorry I did. The ending left me with a bittersweet feeling, like I'd been dropped off the edge without warning, and yet I felt it was telegraphed quite well from the beginning.

This is no light, fluffy read, and perhaps I've been reading too many of those. Very little happens in this book, and yet, so much is said. Friendships are formed. People learn to look beneath the surface. Many observations are made about Truth and Beauty and Class and Intelligence and Art and cats. I found myself wanting a physical copy of the book so I could flip through for my favorite passages whenever I wanted.

And yet, I can't see myself reading it again. The characters were exhausting. I can't imagine seeing the world the way they do without needing to lie down every hour. Everything has a universal meaning that ties in to Art and Philosophy in a way that made a pretty whistling noise as it sailed over my head.

It was enjoyable to read. It was also draining to read. It was not what I expected to read.

This was extremely well-written, had characters I loved, and had a unique and wonderful plot. But it was a little TOO deep for me at parts, which made it a little hard to get through some chapters.