If you're going to write a pandemic novel, this is really the only way to do it: meta and cosmically. At its core, this is a delicate and spatial book that offers tender glances around time and existence. Yet, it feels like three novellas adequately stitched together. The last book tour on Earth for a pandemic novel is the most self-aware (the pandemic novel within a pandemic novel), with the other segments adding a metaverse for Mandel's previous novel, and later, a futuristic setting which lays the groundwork for the more profound philosophies about time and humanity. I saw the quiet beauty in this book but it never grabbed my attention too strongly, same with Mandel's previous novel. There is undoubtable strength in Mandel's writing style, but this fell short for me. (Perhaps a lack of dynamism in the plot structuring?) But hey, as long as Knopf keeps knocking it out of the park with their cover designs, I will keep getting pulled back into any metaverse that Mandel throws my way.