I had no idea what to expect from this book because I’ve never quite read anything with a similar premise, but it started off really strong. The first 100 or so pages of this flew by and I was immediately engrossed with the unique concept and dreamlike storytelling and atmosphere. It was also very funny, the humour in here was really clever, quick and witty which made engaging with it very easy. I was interested.

After a while though, this book got less interesting and more confusing. It was like the more I read of this book, the more it was trying to shake me off and lose me. While the writing and pacing started quite consistently and something I liked about the book, there was a gradual shift over time and by the end it just felt dragged out and the writing was so convoluted with different challenging aspects my brain was fried. I don’t know if that’s an issue with the book, or myself. This book was trying to say a lot of things, I believe I only grasped a couple.

The plot started clear and then got very murky. With the introduction of multiple characters, and a quite unclear style of narration, it lost me a few times. I was stumbling over names, places, and events in my head trying to get this story straight. I really wish the plot had perhaps been stripped back a little so we could focus more on the protagonist himself instead of everyone he’s ever met (or what felt like it). I grew not to like him over time, his voice got less funny and more irritating. To me, he proved a quite difficult protagonist to like.

Though for the most part I wasn’t feeling overly positive, this book was quite profound in some ways and I really liked the beginning and how it eventually ended. I think less would have almost certainly been more with this one, it was far too slow paced and the length of it didn’t help - especially coupled with the depth with which the author was trying to write.