This was an extremely well written book and the framing was particularly clever. Like reading tree rings, it starts with the future and goes back in time to the “heartwood” years of the Greenwood family, then starts moving forward again. The two bookend chapters set in 2038 were my least favorite, partially due to an underdeveloped central character in Jack. It’s unfortunate because it made getting into the book much harder and somewhat soured the ending. Lucky those chapters are short (though that might contribute to the characters feeling underdeveloped), and the 2008/1974 chapters are shorter too, so you quickly get to the middle 50% of the book that centers around the Greenwood brothers in 1934 and 1908. Their story was definitely the heartwood and drew me in.

There were some flaws, especially with some overblown characterizations and “for the plot” choices that brought this down from a 5 for me. But the cleverness of the construction itself as the author chips away and reveals more and more truth in the plot and the family history really made this book stand out.