It’s a slow start, like wading into quick sand. The prose is dense, sentences and paragraphs spanning longer than they have any right to, with future jargon on constant tap that tracks just enough to seep into understanding. Entire shifts in scenery occur without warning, but somehow subtly, like the flicker of one dream into the next same but different dream. Once you gain fluency in this world, it’s easy to become lost in the kaleidoscopic tapestry. This all felt intentional, and reading some interviews afterwards confirmed this for me.

It’s not as experimental as something like Dead Astronauts, or quite as fever dreamy as Land of Milk and Honey, but it’s still not a light read. I don’t know if smaller sessions would have been better, or just precluded my eventual flow state of fluency that unlocked the ease of the last portion of the book, when the ideas started to converge. Should you read it? Hard to say, but I thought it was a poignant and dark reflection of a reality my privilege shields me from, for now, while not beating the point or layering the guilt. There’s hope woven in and even the darkest of topics are given enough allusion off screen to provide granular grit without having to look too closely and require strong trigger warnings. That’s the whole point though, isn’t it? (But seriously, if allusions or mentions of dark topics is enough for one of your triggers, be sure to check).