Great Believers (Makkai) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
The Great Believers soars.… Makkai has full command of her multi-generational perspective, and by its end, The Great Believers offers a grand fusion of the past and the present, the public and the personal. It’s remarkably alive despite all the loss it encompasses.
Chicago Tribune


Focused on a group of friends, lovers, and family outcasts, the book highlights the way tragic illness shifts the courses of people’s lives—and how its touch forever lingers on those left behind.
Harper's Bazaar


Tearjerker.… The Great Believers asks big questions about redemption, tragedy, and connection. Makkai has written her most ambitious novel yet.
Entertainment Weekly


Makkai knits themes of loss, betrayal, friendship and survival into a powerful story of people struggling to keep their humanity in dire circumstances.
People Magazine


(Starred review) [A] striking, emotional journey through the 1980s AIDS crisis.… Makkai creates a powerful, unforgettable meditation, not on death, but rather on the power and gift of life. This novel will undoubtedly touch the hearts and minds of readers.
Publishers Weekly


At turns heartbreaking and hopeful, the novel brings the first years of the AIDS epidemic into very immediate view.… [Makkai[]… shows the compassion of chosen families and the tension and distance that can exist in our birth ones.
Library Journal


(Starred review) As her intimately portrayed characters wrestle with painful pasts and fight to love one another…, Makkai carefully reconstructs 1980s Chicago, WWI-era and present day Paris…. A tribute to the enduring forces of love and art, over everything.
Booklist


(Starred review) [Makkai's]… rich portraits of an array of big personalities…make this tender, keening novel an impressive act of imaginative empathy. As compulsively readable as it is thoughtful and moving: an unbeatable fictional combination.
Kirkus Reviews