This wasn’t my favorite book of the year, but as another reader said, it was “consistently engaging.” I looked forward to picking it back up every time I put it down.

This is somewhere between 3.5-4, but rounding up because Emily Mandel’s writing is so damn good.

This book has Mandel’s signature style — the interconnected stories, the hazy mystery, characters adrift in myriad ways — and it works, as it always does. While I didn’t find the plot of this book quite as engaging as the rest of her books, I still felt myself drawn in by these characters and the odd choices they make, the ways their lives intersected in surprising (if not slightly too coincidental) ways. There was a bit more of suspension of disbelief in this book than in, say, The Singer’s Gun or Last Night in Montreal, but there is also something to be said for how Mandel doesn’t focus too much on the actual mystery, or try to do a “gotcha” and pull the rug out from under you. Rather, this book is more of a character study, more focused on aspiration and disappointment, the way we can hope and hope and hope for a good outcome but are often left with something less enticing than we’d initially wanted.

I did appreciate the claustrophobia of the small cast, which recalls the way that high school can often feel like the first and last stop in terms of social circles. There is so much potential for entanglement when you only know half a dozen people. I do wish that the story had time to dive deeper into rationales and backstories, especially for Anna, who always seemed to be recounted via the memories of others. This reminded me a lot of Lilia in Last Night in Montreal, and Mandel’s other heroines who, for better or for worse, must escape the assumptions and “good intentions” of others to find her own identity. Anna felt a bit less fully formed, and while the larger story still draws you in, I wanted a bit more insight into the characters’ motivations.

Mandel’s books, regardless of their plot, are always satisfying for the minute ways they link together, the small details left as gifts for dedicated readers. I love this kind of stuff, and cheered a little when I found details from The Glass Hotel scattered about. We love a connected universe! It’s always so fun when an author leaves Easter eggs. Though I didn’t love this book quite as much as the earlier ones I read, Mandel is still firmly on my “must-read” list and I’ll be waiting for next novel with bated breath.

This is the first book I read by this author that I didn’t love. I found it too hard to care about the characters and their bad choices.

I seriously loved this one. Read it in a day; just couldn't put it down.
Not much of an uplifting story but it ultimately came to a satisfying conclusion that was not too tidy and left room for some post-book mulling.