What am I supposed to do after reading this? Pick up another book? Read something else? Like, Hamnet was dead at the start of the whole story, he's been dead for centuries, and yet! And yet you hope, right? Like you hope Orpheus won't turn around, like you hope Patrocles survives the war, like you hope this time the labyrinth is different, but no! It's always the same. The story is still the story, even when the book is closed, even before it's started.

Maybe the anti-Rromani show said something when it said, "What is grief except.for love persisting?"

( Also, shut up, the way Hamnet becomes Hamlet, the way grief pervades every corner of this book... I have a headache, I'm sore, I feel as if I've gotten into a bare-knuckle boxing match with God and lost. )