Doerr is a great writer. His prose is evocative and he creates characters that feel real. This book has five main seemingly disparate story lines that end up coming together, which I usually enjoy. The reason I'm only giving it 3 stars: it's somewhat unsatisfying. There are cool aspects to the story, but after 600 pages, I expect all the gaps to be filled. Instead, I walked away with a lot of questions which made me wonder if my audiobook was jumpy and skipped key sections. Having looked at the questions other readers ask, it seems the issue was the writing, not the audiobook.

Additionally, I'd be curious if there's any consensus among readers about which story lines were most compelling. I really enjoyed when the book focused on Konstance, Zeno and Seymour; I was bored and impatient when it focused on Anna and Omeir – and with the fable itself, which was interspersed throughout the book.