As a book—an object—this is wonderful. The design was done by Chip Kidd, with illustrations by the cartoonist Seth. It's beautiful to look at, and the illustrations of the characters at the beginning of each section are lovely and help you navigate the story.

The eccentricity of writing a novel in verse is staggering, and the result is delicious. I tend to read too fast, gulping down the words to follow the plot. This style slows me down, and makes me appreciate the book more. The vignettes of characters are wonderful.

I guess it's no surprise that it's not a conventional novel. The story jumps from character to character, but converges. It covers a dizzying amount of time in remarkably few pages. The cover is a portrait of a woman. There are holes drilled in it, which reveal letters on the next page which spell out the title. The book is rather like that. The story covers decades, but does it by giving you glimpses of short, vivid scenes.