I’m pleased to welcome you today to my stop on the blog tour for unique and moving The Museum of Lost Love by Gary Barker. Thank you to Anne Cater and World Editions for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.
About the book:
In Zagreb is an unusual museum: it displays mementos of broken relationships. Each exhibit describes a unique story of a broken heart, of love gone awry.
When Katia and Goran visit the museum, Goran stumbles upon an exhibit that seems to be addressed to him, from a girl he met in a Sarajevo refugee camp at age fourteen. A reminder of two days spent together while he and his mother and brother waited anxiously for visas to America to escape the war.
Encouraged by Katia, a therapist, to reconnect with his lost past, Goran confronts the youth he lost during the Yugoslav Wars. Similarly Katia, adopted by Americans at one week old after her birth mother was murdered in a gangland killing in Brazil, heads back to Brazil to uncover her own family history.
Meanwhile Tyler, a military veteran and one of Katia’s patients, attempts to put the Afghan war behind him, and finds love in unexpected circumstances.
Drawing upon his own experiences working in conflict zones, Gary Barker’s powerful novels dive deep into human love and longing. Crossing continents, and set against backdrops of war, deprivation, and violence, The Museum of Lost Love is a soulful testament to the resilience of the human heart.
About the author:
GARY BARKER is an author, researcher, and human rights activist. He is founder and director of Promundo, an international organization that works with men and boys in more than 25 countries to achieve gender equality and end violence against women.
He has been awarded an Ashoka Fellowship and an Open Society Fellowship for his work in conflict zones. His previous novels include Luisa’s Last Words, Mary of Kivu, and The Afghan Vampires Book Club (co-written with Michael Kaufman).
Barker lives in Washington, DC.
Website: https://garytbarker.com/
My Review:
The Museum of Lost Love by Gary Barker is a unique and moving book that’s unlike any I’ve ever read before. Only a short book at just over 200 pages, but one that packs an emotional punch to the gut nevertheless. It’s a beautifully written story filled with love, tragedy, courage and fear, but is also one that leaves you with an overriding sense of hope as you come to the end of it.
The story centres around a place that really exists, a unique and fascinating museum that displays the mementos of broken relationships and the stories behind them. It’s a place I would love to visit in real life as this is the sort of thing that I love! I’m fascinated by old photographs, letters, clothes and mementos and love to learn the stories behind them, so this book jumped out at me from the moment I read the blurb. And it more than lived up to my expectations!
Set in Zagreb during summer, the story focuses on Tyler, Katia and Goran and is told from the point of view of each character as they individually narrate a chapter, with each one ending with a story from the museum. As we move through the book we get to know Tyler, Katia and Goran as the author cleverly weaves their stories together with the exhibits from the museum. It’s a moving story of love, loss, war and everything in between and is a tale that doesn’t always make for easy reading, but is so compelling and fascinating that once started I could not put this book down.
A mesmerising and thought provoking read that will stay with me, The Museum of Lost Love is a warm, moving and powerful novel that was even more wonderful than I thought it would be. Highly recommended.
The Museum of Lost Love by Gary Barker is available to buy now: Amazon UK
Check out what these other fabulous bloggers have to say about this book:
Cal Turner Reviews 
Thanks for the blog tour support Cal xx
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It was a pleasure, Anne. x
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