Yiyun Li

"Lilia Liska has shrewdly outlived three husbands, raised five children, and seen the arrival of seventeen grandchildren. Now she has turned her keen attention to the diary of a man named Roland Bouley, with whom she once had an affair--the man who was the father of her daughter Lucy. Lilia tells her rather different version of events revealing the surprising, long-held secrets of her past. And she returns inexorably to her daughter, Lucy, who took her own life at the age of twenty-seven. This is a novel about life in all its messy glory--life lived, for the extraordinary Lilia, absolutely on her own terms. With great candor and insight, Yiyun Li writes of a life of resilience, loss and rebirth"--

Must I Go

Richly expansive and deeply moving, an intimate novel of secret lives and painful histories from one of the finest storytellers we have Lilia Liska is 81. She has shrewdly outlived three husbands, raised five children and seen the arrival of seventeen grandchildren. Now she has turned her keen attention to a strange little book published by a vanity press: the diary of a long-forgotten man named Roland Bouley, with whom she once had a fleeting affair. Increasingly obsessed by this fragment of intimate history, Lilia begins to annotate the diary with her own rather different version of events. Gradually she undercuts Roland's charming but arrogant voice with an incisive and deeply moving commentary. She reveals to us the surprising, long-held secrets of her past. And she returns inexorably to her daughter, Lucy, who took her own life at the age of 27. Must I Go is an unconventional epistolary novel, a gleefully one-way correspondence between the very-much-alive Lilia and the long-departed Roland. Though mortality is ever-present, this is ultimately a novel about life, in all its messy glory. Life lived, for the extraordinary Lilia, absolutely on its own terms. With exquisite subtlety and insight, Yiyun Li navigates the twin poles of grief and resilience, loss and rebirth, that compass a human heart.

Tabea Lüth

Libro molto "denso" che pesa come un mattoncino nonostante abbia relativamente poche pagine. È stato però un viaggio bellissimo ed emozionante nelle vite dei personaggi, di quelli che solo questa autrice sa raccontare.

Francesca

Fraser Simons

The premise is interesting—and I imagine may be better than audiobook, depending on how it is presented in text format—but it is really overwritten and some characters that not only become unlikeable, but actually grating. There are others that countermand this but when it swings back to them it really does feel tedious. It’s actually maybe a testament to how well written the parts that work is that I came away thinking it was alright and did not stop reading it entirely. 

The narrators themselves are also pretty good. I really do wonder if this is the ideal format for the book, considering the premise. I really like the idea of annotating an existing text, and it could be presented really interestingly, maybe sell the concept better. As is, it’s fine, but I expected more from it considering the accolades of the author and the concept. Pretty sure I got this from a best books of the year list, so maybe my overall expectations were inflated as well.

Ece Angi

Slow, boring and uneventful! Took soo long for the plot to develop and the story line seemed like it could be explained better. The characters seemed realistic and well developed though 

Must I Go

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