What do readers think of A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer duBois? Write your own review.

For a first novel from a young author, this is an amazing book. It is skillfully written in a clever style, interweaving the lives of its central characters looking for answers to life's difficult question.

The characters are more interesting than appealing. The story line proceeds through a political period (also pertinent today) in a compelling manner. It is a thought-provoking read.

It is rare that you find a book that combines both an engaging story and beautiful thought provoking prose. A Partial History of Lost Causes combines both, along with engaging characters and a universally accessible commentary that addresses the mundane, the cruel and the unexplainable parts of life. This is the kind of book that leaves me craving the next book from the author. And unlike some readers, I love having to go to the dictionary now and again during my reading. Having to do so every page becomes cumbersome, but a handful of well used words not in popular rotation restores the beauty of language that we have lost. I celebrate this book and it's author!

DuBois has written a marvelous meditation on what gives life meaning, what makes life worth living, and what is it about ourselves that makes us the same person as we move through time. This is a deeply philosophical novel, but it is also a tremendously engaging novel with interesting characters and two compelling, intertwined plot-lines that beautifully illustrate the odd similarities between individual health challenges and politics in oppressive countries.

I enjoyed the writing style and wanted to like this book more than I did. It was a little too slow moving for me. Usually that would not be an issue, as some books are more of a journey than others and I can appreciate that. I did have trouble getting "into" the portions that centered around Aleksandr. It took me until well halfway into the book to gain enough interest in the book to want to finish and find out what happens with Irina. I can tell that this author has the ability to weave an interesting story and to write intelligently but what I didn't love was was how the style had a touch of being almost forcibly descriptive. Everything seemed to have/require an obvious, uninteresting adjective or adverb ahead of it. It became tiresome and eventually irritated me. I did like the connection between her childhood with her father and the game of chess. I liked how chess was the thread that connected all the facets of the story. At the end of the day, it was an entertaining enough read that I would possibly recommend it to certain friends.

As someone who has visited Eastern Europe several times, I was particularly interested in this story. While not particularly an "easy" read (it took me a little bit to get into it) - it was definitely worth it. Intelligent and intriguing, I hope to read more by Jennifer DuBois.

This story is true to it's name and for the two central characters the things they want and strive for are truly lost causes. I was never really sympathetic to either one of them because they seemed so self absorbed that I did not like them. The title is probably a mistake as it removes all question of the ending before you even get into the book.

One narrator is living under the shadow of Huntington's, a degenerative disease that killed her father. The other is a former world chess champion who is in a quixotic quest to unseat Vladimir Putin. Both are searching for answers about how to move forward when they're playing a moving match.

This is one of the freshest and most imaginative debuts I've read lately, approached with grace and thoughtfulness. Jennier DuBois writes with a hard-won maturity as her characters tackle that all-important question of why we keep playing if we know we cannot win. It's an achievement.