In a kind of haze, I can say a couple of things:

In six months I might knock this down a star for not having the "stick with me" effect that I'm looking for in a book to give it five stars but I have only one complaint and it's that the last 30 pages or so drag themselves to a conclusion. I like an abrupt ending, something clean and precise, and for how clean and precise the rest of this is, the fact that this dragged out past Jude + Oscar making up (or making out lol) to wrap up a couple perhaps inconsequential loose ends almost cheapened the ending. And ALSO towards the end the concept started to feel a little contrived, but not so much that it takes away from the LIFE of this book. idk I feel like this is the first book I've read in a long lonnng time that's going to stick with me, that's going to mean something to me for years and I don't know how to even start to articulate it.

Well I do know how to start. Two things: first of all first book I've read where both main characters are left handed??? YES??? Incredible love that for me. Second, I love books about art and artists even though I am artistically challenged and have no idea how to speak about art. This makes me feel both ENTHUSIASTIC about writing and also demoralized, like I'm never going to write this because this is what I would have written. Very complicated. Perhaps one day I will return and actually say what this means to me. Perhaps not.