Thanks for stopping by! I'm Cori and I'm happy you've found your way here. If you're wondering why my blog is called "Let's Eat Grandpa," it's an old grammar joke: Let's eat, grandpa! Let's eat grandpa! (Punctuation saves lives.) 
All Clear by Connie Willis
Read: Because her book Blackout ended on a cliffhanger!
Finished: 1/15/11
Rating: 9 out of 10
Publisher: Spectra
Pages: 656
Originally Published: October 2010
Synopsis (from Amazon): In Blackout, award-winning author Connie Willis returned to the time-traveling future of 2060—the setting for several of her most celebrated works—and sent three Oxford historians to World War II England: Michael Davies, intent on observing heroism during the Miracle of Dunkirk; Merope Ward, studying children evacuated from London; and Polly Churchill, posing as a shopgirl in the middle of the Blitz. But when the three become unexpectedly trapped in 1940, they struggle not only to find their way home but to survive as Hitler’s bombers attempt to pummel London into submission. Now the situation has grown even more dire. Small discrepancies in the historical record seem to indicate that one or all of them have somehow affected the past, changing the outcome of the war. The belief that the past can be observed but never altered has always been a core belief of time-travel theory—but suddenly it seems that the theory is horribly, tragically wrong.
Overall Impression: When combined with Blackout, this was one ginormous book — nearly 1300 pages, I believe. It took me a long time to get into Blackout, but it was much easier to pick up All Clear and continue the journey. Blackout was also difficult because there were so many plots and they were all over the place and nothing wrapped up at the end of the book. Right from the beginning of All Clear, however, Willis starts developing this beautiful dance of plots, where I was able to start to see how everything is woven together. And by the end, as everything settled into place, I realized what a master Willis is at plotting. It was like every intricate plot and every lost character effortlessly came together in the final hundred pages. It was beautiful. So glad I worked through Blackout to get to All Clear. It was worth it!
Positives: Willis has a mastery of plot — it’s amazing. I also love Willis’ time traveling world and the idea of having characters get stuck in the past, not knowing whether or not their actions will affect whether or not they exist in the future. Paradoxes galore! Oh! And the scene toward the end between Polly and Sir Godfrey. It was stunning. I cried.
Negatives: Long, long, and long. I wish there had been a way to condense it a little. I think too few people will pick it up because of the sheer undertaking of it all.
Other books I’ve read by Connie Willis:
Blackout (review)
To Say Nothing of the Dog
Doomsday Book
Bellweather
Other blogger opinions:
Rhapsody in Books: “As I started All Clear, I was wondering, why did she need two books to tell this story? But by the time I finished and was wiping away my tears while once again admiring Willis’s cleverness, I was hoping fans would prevail upon her to write a third!”
Sarah Reck: “I definitely recommend them to everyone — seriously, everyone — providing that you don’t mind huge books.”
Val’s Random Comments: “Willis’ most ambitious work to date is not a book that will be universally loved. Despite my quibbles with some aspects of this work, I enjoyed it tremendously.”
