I did not particularly like this book. I can see why it would appeal to some people, and even why it would be award winning, but it was definitely not my cup of tea.

It wasn't bereft of enjoyment, and I did notice an improvement in the second half of the book, but really what bogged me down was the writing. It's too millennial twee by half - it came as absolutely no surprise to me that the author is a Gawker editor. Rather than reworking or retreading fantasy tropes (abusive parents, terrible sibling, magic school), Anders takes them individually and blows them up to their extremes. I can see why she would take this as a tactic in an exploration of genre, but it just did not work for me in the narrative.

Similarly, Anders lampoons the San Francisco hipster culture with an emphasis on the characters going to silly restaurants or drinking kale beverages, but it quickly became stale and lacked any sort of incisiveness. It was, I think, a sort of purposeless self-consciousness or self-effacement.

The overall plot, which is described as this union/strife between magic and science, slips its narrative veil a bit too easily as cover for our modern approaches to climate change. I think there was a lot of interesting material here, and my favorite parts of the book were the late-mid section where Patricia and Laurence's views on the philosophy of "saving the world" from the coming climactic peril are thrown most into juxtaposition. However, this wasn't explored as well as I would have liked considering it was the most interesting part of the book. Perhaps in an effort to make both of the main characters more likeable or empathetic, Anders sacrificed some of the deeper critiques of both approaches. The synthesis we're supposed to find between them is a bit of a literal deus-ex-machina and does little to satisfy the inquisitive and alert reader.