Book Club book - probably wouldn't have picked it up otherwise, though I'm glad I did. I enjoyed it (except for the ending).
I read the book in an entire sitting (sometimes it's nice what flying across North America can do for you), which is unusual for me, but I think I got so much more out of it that way. I wish I had more time to read entire books at one time like that in my regular life. It wasn't necessarily a realistic book; there were certainly times that I thought "that character wouldn't do that" which usually means their actions are there only for the convenience of the plot. I find this kind of unexplained character motivation is more prevalent in movies (probably simply because there isn't time to properly develop a reason for character motivation) but when it crops up in novels, it makes you wonder why. Sometimes it's something I missed as a reader (I somehow missed that Kim was Irish in Kim the first time round, so that really confused me), but sometimes it's just not there. Since other people in the book club felt the same, it wasn't just me.
But there were other parts that although they were far-fetched, I was able to accept because they were, after all, in a very unusual and stressful situation.
But I hated the ending. It didn't seem real to me. Or maybe it was real. But that would mean the rest of the book was unreal, and I don't want it to be. In that way, the book was a bit like The Life of Pi in that you had to choose which version to believe in the end. I had a hard time giving up the first version in that case too.