4/5. Recommended by a fellow reader. This is a love story, its characters so vividly portrayed I cared about what happened to them almost from the start. This is a story about Hawaii, the true grittiness of the people's lives and the myths that make the place so special. This is a story about Russia and what it did to its own citizens. It's a story about greed and anger and degradation of the environment through weapons testing. And it's a story about hope. I didn't plan to like this story as much as I did, and some sloppy editing in the middle of it didn't help, but I closed the book deeply moved by these larger-than-life characters.

this book was beautifully written. it follows two stories that gradually interweave. one about a native hawaiian family struggling with poverty, drugs, and unjust u.s. military practices in hawaii. the other about a boy growing up in post world war two russia.

much of the book was horribly depressing, as it dealt with the effects of nuclear testing on civilian populations. thinking of all the lives lost, genetic mutations, birth defects, and cancers caused by all of the nuclear fallout is really sickening and at times i had to stop reading the book because it was just too depressing. i just can't believe the things governments will do to their own people just for the sake of making a bomb.

but the writing was beautiful and the themes of love and forgiveness and family and culture outweighed the horrors of the other parts.

i think you should check it out. (if it helps, alice walker and isabel allende both praise kiana davenport on the back of this book)

Beautifully written, tedious to read. The plot felt like it could not decide what it wanted to be, so it tried to be everything. Unsuccessfully.

Again- the writing was seriously skillful and beautiful.

I wanted to,like this, I really did.... and I did like learning a little about Hawaiian culture, but that’s about all I liked. The characters seemed shallow and unconvincing, the plot was either predictable or outrageously unlikely — a wealthy, wise and generous male benefactor! an obstetrician giving birth without even a trained midwife on hand! glamorous Russian dissidents! —- the result was that I really didn’t care about any of these people. I had to force myself to finish the book.

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!

It's a no from me.

This story explains the Hawaiian side of the despoiling of their islands. Emotional but factual. Love the story of the family, all it's joys and troubles. The pride of one of the family becoming a doctor and staying in the islands . The mother that couldn't stay but supported the family for all the years.

Excellent book, I felt so engaged and engulfed in the whole story! Very descriptive as far as the backdrop, & backgrounds of the characters and just the overall emotions of character narrative detail provided individually in every chapter. KD's a great story teller indeed! I'm looking forward to reading her other books! This book definitely met my expectations!

Well-written romance novel. I felt that the Russian characters were a little too superficial and stereotypical for my tastes. Good beach read kind of book.

This was a difficult book to get through because of the amount of pain in it. In fact, I returned it to the library about two-thirds of the way through, thinking I didn't want to keep experiencing it -- but the characters continued to haunt me, so I checked it out again to finish it. I'm glad I did. The story is ultimately a redemptive one, asserting the power of love and family.

This story opened up a previously unknown-to-me world of native Hawaiians and the cultural and ecological impact of outside cultural influences, particularly the US military.

Hawaii and the struggles individuals in this community go through are beautiful and strong. The rest of the book spent too much time on too many topics, a half-written love interest who’s entire story was repeated twice for some reason, and trying to create a full circle but doing only okay.

DNF!

Idk this book felt extremely long to me. Like I was reading but getting nowhere closer to the plot. Great writing and character development and I love the glimpses of Hawaii and Hawaiian people it gave but it was just too slow for me.