Little, big

I still remember the days before Goodreads gave one the chance, or you might instead say "urged one," to begin a review as soon as one admitted one was reading it. It feels recent and yet it may have been several years ago when this turn was taken. I welcomed it at first because by the time I reached the end of a book I had so often forgotten things I wanted to say at the beginning but once it became the default, that opportunity to not forget turned threateningly in to a frontloading of the reading process. As one who abandons more than I complete, though I wasn't always such, I wonder if I will become more likely to DNF once I've already had my say.

Some things, it is clear are not going to change in the pages that follow (though I am listening to it in audio and thus it isn't pages at all) and that is the style in which it is written, or the genre, which though related is a separate consideration.. That genre is not fantasy, in my opinion, but closer to magical realism. The style is almost unique, if "unique" may be modified by "almost.' It is unhurried. It is poetic. It is at times technical, referencing Paracelsus, Aquinas, Theosophy, the Rosicrucians. It is whimsical--e.g. a doctor who doesn't practice medicine but writes children's books "under the name of Saunders.". a house inhabited by The Junipers which smells like gin. It uses words like 'infundibulum' and ' ineluctable'. I admit I worry how that will wear on me over time.

I would give it 4.5. It's a phenomenal read but slow in places.

It's very good...no, maybe it isn't.

Fantastic. I think I may need to read it again though. Which I don't see as a problem at all.