I super liked the form of this. There isn't much of a plot -- it just kind of cuts between different events in different points of time -- but there is still some kind of tension. I think it's because we know there's this big, bad event waiting for us at the end (

and man, that ending is heartbreaking

). It also doesn't like to get deep into any character's mind, but this removal is thematically fitting, and I found that harmony satisfying. There is also so much white space, which is also thematically fitting.

I mean, Julio doesn't even find out that Emilia is dead for a year (or a year and a half! I love this detail!) later. We don't even get to know why she committed suicide. She's just dead, suddenly, and it's treated so commonly that it doesn't feel like this big thing, which both makes sense and doesn't make sense all at once. It's satisfying, though. The white space! The passage of years! The not-knowing! It all just fits.

I'm so disappointed to hear this became a movie. Filling in all the details and making things concrete takes away so much of the magic of this piece. The white space and the unsureness of the narrator add to the story so much. Super fast, super easy read. It's deceptively simple.