Turbulence by David Szalay

The description of this book captured my attention.  I quote from Netgalley on the premise of this book Turbulence.

“In this wondrous, profoundly moving novel, Szalay’s diverse protagonists circumnavigate the planet in twelve flights, from London to Madrid, from Dakar to Sao Paulo, to Toronto, to Delhi, to Doha, en route to see lovers or estranged siblings, aging parents, baby grandchildren, or nobody at all. Along the way, they experience the full range of human emotions from loneliness to love and, knowingly or otherwise, change each other in one brief, electrifying interaction after the next.”

Maybe I’m thick but I didn’t see the connection with interactions of people on each flight.  Clearly the airlines and flights are the focus and each character is supposed to be touched by a person they meet in flight, or about to take a flight. Each mini story is separated by airport codes.

The first story was fairly easy to connect, as was a pilot hooking up with a journalist.  The stories are very short, not a properly long novel at all which is what I was expecting.  You didn’t have a chance to get to know the characters very well therefore I couldn’t sympathize with them.

When I opened this book on my Kindle the time at the bottom stated one hour and thirty minutes to the end of the book.  Easy to read but I couldn’t engage with any of the characters.  Not enough development.

This is a short review for a short book. Some people found this very engaging; I did not. It was touted as “written with magic and economy” and I can say they got the economy correctly described.

Much thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy of this book.  It was worth a try! Opinions are all mine and I was clearly not compensated for the review.