"Confusion is normal."

Walker's prose floated me into this story so smoothly it felt like I was one of the dreamers, yielding to the narrative like a sickness. There is so much mystery to savor in this novel. It may even get savored a bit too much.

The plot stretches thin in the middle and there seems no reason for the frugality. The narrative engine is so rich, she could have given the reader plenty more, and if plot were merely to serve some other overarching interest, well I didn't see enough evidence of that. The result was my panic about 80% through the novel when I realized just how much the ending would make or break this work. I can tell you I felt satisfied enough to give this a pretty good star rating (i.e., I didn't get mad at the author) but I'm not convinced she filled out this idea as well as she could have.

I wouldn't be so disappointed if I didn't think Karen Thompson Walker was an excellent writer. The narrative structuring is elegant and she is able to create a form of pastiche reporting that blends together really well, propelling the story forward without relying on the psychological motivations of a central character. It's a kind of sociological storytelling I am keenly interested in. The narrative form of our century, really.

Do I recommend this? Yes. There is enough here to haunt and delight. Do I wish it were longer? Perhaps she'll write a sequel.