by Donal Ryan, 2018, Kindle Edition, Penguin Books

This book starts with the story of a young doctor trying to escape Syria with his family. It then leaves him and shifts to a young man in Ireland who is having a tough time with his family, his job, and his girlfriend who dumps him. It then shifts to another individual, a man who starts cheating on his wife. Each of these stories is left unfinished as it shifts from one to the other. I initially thought that the book was a collection of unrelated short stories, like The Dubliners, by James Joyce which I had just finished. I read the book until the last chapter and wasn’t going to finish it until I discovered that the last chapter tied together all the individuals in the previous chapters. They became related to each other though circumstances that none of them could have foreseen.

The last chapter redeemed the book, but I didn’t care for the language used in some of the previous chapters. I know that some of these characters would have used such language in real life, but the constant use of it is disgusting in my opinion. I would have enjoyed it more without so much of it.