This was an interesting book. I can't decide if I like it or not. A group of dignitaries visit a third world country to gather for an exclusive opera performance--at a birthday party for a Japanese executive. Terrorists burst in on the party and take all the guests hostage. There follows a study in Stockholm syndrome. When the hostage situation is over (after many weeks), those who were once terrorists no longer seem so terrible.
This was an absorbing story. Completely unrealistic, I thought. Not that I necessarily expect fiction to be realistic--in fact sometimes it really bothers me when fantasy attempts to imitate "reality" in jarring ways. I'm not sure if I can explain this idea...it bothers me when gritty reality is portrayed in a story that is otherwise in no way realistic. I really thought that the relationships imagined in this book could never have happened. In that way it felt like fantasy. However, the end was quite realistic, jarringly so. It was an appropriate ending. There could have been no other ending I guess. But the juxtaposition of fantasy and reality bothers me always. Just a personal thing, I guess.
It was a very different book. Such a combination of the unexpected and the cliche, the pleasant and the horrifying, the fantastic and the gritty.
FYI, there were two very foul words in this book. They were unnecessary, but there anyway. There were also 2 sexual relationships (both outside of marriage) depicted. Those were part of what made part of this book very unrealistic. Because of these two things, I cannot comfortably recommend this book.
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