How High We Go In the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu. It will make you weep; it will give you hope and destroy you at the same time. 5 stars.

I meant to read at least ten other books before this one, but when I sat down to check out the first few pages, I just kept reading straight through to the end. The world building style reminded me of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas in that it brought seemingly unrelated stories together woven through with finely connected threads. Each segment has an expertly introduced setting and characters of its own, and the writer brings us into harmony with them all, as well as with the work as a whole.

The ending may not appeal to everyone, and did not quite fully appeal to me, but it works in the context of the book, and I enjoyed the skill with which Nagamatsu delivered it despite being a little alienated by the direction it went.

This book is worth every minute.