We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies

I can definitely see how some readers might enjoy this book, but it wasn’t really for me. The more I reflect on the book, the lower I think my rating for it is. The narrative jumps around over about a 50 year span and between four characters but it never seems to solidify. There is so much background that never gets explored yet seems to be crucial to understanding the characters motivations. As the narrative changes perspective large gaps in each characters lived history emerge, for example the narrative as told by Samphel doesn’t even begin until ¾ through the book. Tenkyi hints at having strong reasons for disliking him, but they are never really unveiled. She stops him for seeing Lhamo for vague reasons. He also suspects something that happened in her past (she flinches when he reaches out to her, as if she thinks he will hit her) but again, we are never given any indication of what this is. I also had a hard time feeling any empathy for Dolma. She has a young persons naive and self-righteous view of the world. She reminds me of someone complaining that no one pays attention to them, then when someone does pay attention yelling “stop looking at me.” Overall I think the author would have been better to keep to one or two perspectives and to tell a more complete story.