Lark and Termite

So I finished this on Sunday and I've been letting it sit. I certainly can say that I liked it, but definitely with reservations. It's a multiple perspective/setting/time novel, shifting around through the eyes of four connected characters. Three of these views - the aunt, the father, and the daughter - worked for me; the fourth, the non-verbal disabled younger brother, didn't really. I felt like she didn't find a believeable voice for him - it made too much sense, it was too syntactical, something our interior voices almost never are - and I'm not sure his contributions added much to the story. There was also what I can only call a supernatural (or maybe magical realism) moment that I found perplexing - I have no problem with imaginary characters entering an otherwise realistic text, but I find it hard to buy when they actually deliver something concrete. It seemed out of tone. There were also a couple of scenes near the end of the book - a creepy next door neighbor, an action movie moment - that didn't really seem to belong to this book. They didn't add to the family story and seemed like third act jeopardy inserted to add excitement (for the movie, perhaps?).

Next up: The Kindly Ones, a 900+ page opus on WWII and the SS. Not sure why I picked it. I'm about 100 pages in and it seems to alternate interesting first person narration with extremely detailed descriptions of German military hierarchies and troop movements. I'm hoping there's some point to it, but, at this stage, I'm wishing he had a more ruthless editor...