Astonishing novel. Complex and deeply felt, with a pitch-perfect sense of place. ( )

Just meh to me.

The book contains a few different characters but the main one is Pilgrim. After her marriage is broken up, followed by a terrible car accident where Pilgrim ran into three children with her car and killed them, Pilgrim tries to escape life by moving to Africa. ( )

Fans of Gone Girl would love this book. I thought it was a better mystery and had characters with more depth. Melanie Finn does a wonderful job unfolding this story of tragedy and grief that winds around the world and rollercoasters through emotions. Her characters feel real and I kept changing my mind about each one, seeing each in a new light as the story progressed. This is a heavy one, but a good one. Read it. ( )

I was loving Finn's prose for about the first 100 pages, then got bored with it. About the first 200 pages (out of 300) focused on Pilgrim Jones, whose international lawyer leaves her because he gets some woman pregnant, and Pilgrim kills three kids with her car in Switzerland when swerving to avoid hitting a dog. Pilgrim then flees to Africa. The rest of the chapters are from points of views (POV's) of different characters. I thought at least 50 pages of Pilgrim's POV could have been edited out, maybe even 100 pages. Bright spots of this "literary thriller" include the well-fleshed-out character of Gloria, who runs an AIDS orphanage; and a line about mercenary Martin Martins: violence is tied up in his identity — that truism will stay with me for a long time. ( )

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14709055

An odd story, oddly told.

Pilgrim Jones, daughter of commune dwellers, is recently separated from her husband when she is involved in a tragic accident. She wakes up in the hospital not remembering anything. And when she learns what she did, she is strangely unattached to it. Others, however, accuse her with their eyes and their words, and ultimately she leaves the Swiss town where it happened and goes to Africa.

Where she works with a woman who is passionate about saving children in a type of orphanage.

However, her accident follows her, in the shape of the father of one of the victims.

However again, when she was in Switzerland she was interviewed by a police detective who appears to find her interesting not only because of how the accident occurred, and he can't get her out of his mind.

The writer assumes different points of view throughout the book, in fact devotes whole sections to different persons. Through a lot of back-and-forth we see the story come together. But how does it end?

( )