Disclaimer: I received this book from the library. Support your local library! All opinions are my own. 

 

Book: House of Many Gods 

 

Author: Kiana Davenport 

 

Book Series: Standalone 

 

Rating: 3/5 

 

Diversity: Hawaiian MC and characters, Jewish characters 

 

Recommended For...: historical fiction readers 

 

Publication Date: June 26, 2007 

 

Genre: Historical Fiction 

 

Age Relevance: Animal violence, gun violence, drugs, language, abuse, and religion mentioned. 

 

Explanation of Above: While I had to DNF the read, for what I did read I noticed that there were some animal violence, drugs, and gun violence in the book. There is some cursing and abuse. The Christian religion and the Jewish religion are also mentioned. 

 

Publisher: Ballantine Books 

 

Pages: 352 

 

Synopsis: From Kiana Davenport, the bestselling author of Song of the Exile and Shark Dialogues, comes another mesmerizing novel about her people and her islands. Told in spellbinding and mythic prose, House of Many Gods is a deeply complex and provocative love story set against the background of Hawaii and Russia. Interwoven throughout with the indelible portrait of a native Hawaiian family struggling against poverty, drug wars, and the increasing military occupation of their sacred lands. 

 

Progressing from the 1960s to the turbulent present, the novel begins on the island of O’ahu and centers on Ana, abandoned by her mother as a child. Raised by her extended family on the “lawless” Wai’anae coast, west of Honolulu, Ana, against all odds, becomes a physician. While tending victims of Hurricane ‘Iniki on the neighboring island of Kaua’i, she meets Nikolai, a Russian filmmaker with a violent and tragic past, who can confront reality only through his unique prism of lies. Yet he is dedicated to recording the ecological horrors in his motherland and across the Pacific. 

 

As their lives slowly and inextricably intertwine, Ana and Nikolai’s story becomes an odyssey that spans decades and sweeps the reader from rural Hawaii to the forbidding Arctic wastes of Russia; from the poverty-stricken Wai’anae coast to the glittering harshness of “new Moscow” and the haunting, faded beauty of St. Petersburg. With stunning narrative inventiveness, Davenport has created a timeless epic of loss and remembrance, of the search for family and identity, and, ultimately, of the redemptive power of love. 

 

Review: I had to regrettably DNF this book at 50 pages. While the book has such beautiful writing, I was just not able to process it all. The book was a confusing for me and there were so many characters to keep up with. The book also had a back and forth timeline that made the read a bit more confusing and in the end, it was me not the book. 

 

Verdict: The book wasn’t for me, but it might be for you!