A sad but a weird story about loss and grief - literally the weirdest I’ve ever read. The plot follows the death of Abraham Lincoln’s son William, who is buried in Oak Hill Cemetary. Lincoln comes to see him, holding his dead body in his arms. Other souls trapped in purgatory watch and vie for the soul of young Willie, as we read the voices of the ghosts and the people surrounding the events of Willie’s death.

It’s told in the tone of voice of the age, which was authentic, but a little distracting, and there are so many characters it’s hard to keep track. It is probably a brilliant book, as told by its literary success and awards, but there were long sections I became completely lost and didn’t understand what was happening.

The Bardo; a state of existence between death and rebirth, where the length of stay is determined by the type of life Led and the age of death. An intricate narrative on the death of Lincoln's son Willie of typhoid fever and the grief related. The novel is written in a unique way, with excerpts from journalist ps and eyewitnesses of the time as well as the fiction Sanders has created to accompany it.
It took me a while to settle into the style of writing but once I did I was hooked. Well deserved prize winner.

I know people have said how good this book is, I just found the style of writing so hard to read and digest. I tried, I really did, sadly this style is not for me.

Initially I thought I would love this book throughout, the premise is a lovely one. However the clashing of quotes to lead the story from several authors reads like a student copying cliff notes down for reference. Quite often disjointed and repetitive ( chapter five for example) it is a difficult read, and it became a love/hate relationship with me. The book to me feels let down by the inital lack of actual story but gains momentum as the book progresses. If you persevere you piece together a sad story of loss and heartache. The book starts on a happy note the marriage of Lincoln to his young wife. Their love initially one of friendship turning into something more. We initially meet Willie, the son of Abe Lincoln on his death bed. The next time is at the graveside, he a ghost with others who haven't stepped into the light and it is here the book becomes its own. You feel the grief with Abraham, the most powerful man in America at the time dealing with a war and the vitriol of the public because of it mixed with the burden, sadness and heartbreak of losing his child. The book balances with some humourous parts brought by Hans Vollman and Rover Begins iii, who themselves had their own heartbreak and act as muses (with others) to carry the story forward. You see lost souls fighting against their day of judgment and how this affected them. The book is more than an account of Lincoln and his child. The historical references give you an indication of the turmoil of the time. The ghosts offering observations on how life and death can combine. The sadness balanced with humour.
Overall, I have grown to enjoy the book and feel if I read it again this will turn to love it. Once you adjust to the jarring narrative the story is a beautiful one and I can understand how is has won awards.

Oh my goodness, that first chapter is so funny. I had to go over part of it a second time as I couldn't believe what I had actually read. Hilarious.

Based on true events, being the death of Abraham Lincoln's 11 year old son, most of this story takes place in a graveyard where the spirits of the dead have plenty to say. Sometimes what they say is rather crude and/or disturbing.

This book reads a little like a stage play and it did take a bit of getting used to the style of writing. However, once I got my head around the unusual way this novel is set out I was rewarded with a captivating, highly entertaining story, well worth the initial perseverance.

This bizarre and brilliant look at life and death and grief should not be as amusing as it is, although it is certainly not all hilarity. After all the basic story is about the death of a child and there are some incredibly touching passages too.

A wonderfully weird book, the like of which I have never read before and one that I will remember for a very long time.

A beautifully written story of the loss of the child and the torment that both the living and the dead endure. Abraham Lincoln's son Willie has died of typhoid and Lincoln is reluctant to let him go, just as much as Willie wants to stay with his father, even though he is dead. Told through the views of the spirits who have yet to pass to the other side, it takes a little while to get used to the style of the story but once you become familiar with the characters, you will be absorbed.

What an intriguing and unique storytelling experience!

Told through the eyes of many different characters Lincoln in the Bardo pieces together the final moments of Willie Lincoln’s life, his father’s grief, and the various people Willie meets in the Bardo.

I know people who have read this book and sung its praises, and others who have listened to the audio and found it hard to follow the 100+ voices. So I did both, read and listened simultaneously- and I highly encourage others to experience this story in this manner - it is quite extraordinary.

Thank you to George Saunders, Bloomsbury Publishing, and NetGalley for granting my wish for this book.

A very clever book, which it probably has the acclaim it has. Personally, I found it boring although I can understand the devastating effect the loss of a child has on a person-I tried to like this book, but sorry it wasn't for me.

Was really looking forward to reading this book. What a shock I was in for. A brilliant idea, some beautiful writing but I couldn’t cope with or follow the many narrators. Abandoned after reading 25%.

This was such a hard title to rate and review. Whilst I appreciated the innovation in narrative style and adored the historical insight it provided, I found I was kept at too far a distance to form any deeper connection with the story-line. The multiple voices were used to create a full picture of events but, on times, thess became repetitive and muddled, whereas I would have personally preferred a more linear and traditional narrative.

This George Saunders tale starts with a older man with a much younger wife who have a Platonic relationship, just as this is about to get physical he dies. From then on I found this to be just a jumble of small paragraphs, each a different voice telling the tale , from a graveyard about the death of Lincoln’s son and the utter grief and pain of losing a son. I found it too difficult to follow and felt it just didn’t flow, I realise this is the style but just not for me.


I would like to thank the author/publisher/NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review

I'd managed to miss hearing about Lincoln in the Bardo, other than to know that it had won the Booker Prize. I was expecting to read a novel about the US president in a physical place called the Bardo. In fact the Lincoln of the title is the president's young son, newly dead of typhus, and waiting in a kind of graveyard limbo, unwilling to leave the father he dearly loves. The novel is peopled by a cast of - ghosts? , spirits? - unable to acknowledge that they are dead, and move on. The three main characters decide that Willie Lincoln must be made to understand that he cannot wait for his father, inhabiting the president as he visits the tomb of his child.

The story is told in multiple voices, including eyewitness historical accounts of the president and the days leading to Willie's death. Through these , the reader sees how memory plays tricks - was it a moonlit night, or was it overcast? This evershifting viewpoint is set against the concrete presence of the presiden't grief, and the strength of love that unerpins it. The personal and the wider political context mix in a kaledioscopic vision of history and humanity.

The way the story is told could seem gimmicky and tricksy, but I felt it really worked well, and found the story hard to put down..

Set in the 'bardo', a kind of purgatory where the inhabitants do not realise they are dead, George Saunders' novel is a commanding and mighty read. New to the bardo is Willie Lincoln, the recently-passed son of the president, Abraham Lincoln. We experience the overwhelming rawness of the president's grief, and the confusion that life brings both inside and outside the bardo, as it's inhabitants start to depart. Unique and intense, highly recommended and a worthy Booker prize winner.

I never read the blurb as I like to discover a book for myself. In this case it was a disadvantage, because it took me a while to work out what on Earth was going on! But I agree that the writing is superb, and the poignancy is all there - I think I'd have to read it a second time to fully appreciate it.

A brilliantly imaginative novel that makes you think about death in a very different way. It made me wonder about loved ones lost.

A fascinating book with an unusual style and format, which takes some time to get into. I tend to think of this as rather a 'Marmite book', love it or hate it, although I fell into a third category of appreciating the cleverness and the novelty of the treatment, whilst not actually enjoying the substance - or lack of it, as many of the characters are ghosts! I can see why it was awarded the Booker Prize for 2017, but, as I've found from reading some of the shortlists over several years, they are not always the most riveting or fluent of reads - though you may well be shot down in flames for saying so. An interesting and at times challenging experience, but one I am not keen to repeat for some time...well, until the next shortlist appears.

Fascinating style of story telling, and a vivid cast of characters. I've never read anything like this before - I did enjoy it, but it was odd mixing historical references with the voice of fictional ghosts.

As the 2017 Booker Prize winner, George Saunders “Lincoln in the Bardo” has naturally garnered hundreds of positive and glowing literary reviews. However, it confirms my belief that Booker winning novels are mainly intended to showcase just how intelligent and discerning all those reviewers who get a chance to have their name in print actually are, whilst the rest of us book-buying public are left to wonder at our ineptitude and inability to grasp quite what all the praise and fuss is all about, and to mourn our complete lack of taste and understanding.

It must be very difficult to create original and innovative literature when everything has been done before, so if the Booker is a prize for this, Saunders has fulfilled the brief. Based upon the death of President Lincoln’s young son, Willie, and set in a grotesque, purgatorial after-life, the book was written as a series of quotations and eye-witness accounts throughout (some historical and taken from publications of the time, others totally invented). This is something I have never encountered before. However, should originality win over literary quality?

I didn’t dislike it, and at 700+ pages, I read it very quickly (probably because soon I almost completely ignored the quote attributes thus cutting out at least 45% of the book), simply reading it as an elongated conversation or text scroll. At times the imagery was moving, at others weird, freakish and obscene. It was also meant to be humorous, but for me it didn’t so much raise a smile. Some of it was thought-provoking, some of it unintelligible, a lot if it repetitive and quite boring.

At the end I was simply left thinking what the.........?

An elegiac, thought-provoking read which gives great insight into a lesser-known aspect of President Lincoln's life. The structure - numerous epitaph-like quotations and asides gathered together - is unusual but very readable and a great source of literary gems, as well as invoking the cemetery setting.

This book took a while to get into, and isn't the easiest of reads, but I did marginally enjoy it. The writing style was quirky, which lead to getting confused throughout, but then it all made clear by the end - I thought the ending was interesting too.