Imagine me gone

I’m not a fan of rotating first-person narrators, which made this hard to embrace. Further, it doesn’t offer a character in particular to like—just a bunch of broken adults doing their best. It centers around eldest sibling Michael, who reminds me of Ignatius J. Reilly without the ironic distance. We’re supposed to love him despite his many failings, but it’s a challenge. The writing is at times overly impressed with its cleverness, but it’s scattered with observations and insights so incisive and well formed that they make it (mostly) worth the struggle.

This book was intense.

Intimate first-person narratives do the story a world of good. John's dread, his fugue state; the all-consuming nature of Michael's predicament - powerfully written. Partly the reason it took me so long to get through this book.

Will definitely be reading it again, some time.

(h/t Dipali for the recommendation.)