24/03/23 - 18/04/23 | spoilers! (a little bit)
The only reason this book did not get five stars was purely personal preference. I think the book is very successful in the message it is trying to send, and I think it's themes are beautifully reflected in its prose.

The book is about government-enforced uniformity and how ripping freedom from people will lead to a shell of humanity. The character and their emptiness reflect that, the lack of emotion in the majority of scenes reflect that, the more sci-fi (?) switch of the end reflects that. The whole book feels hollow and that seems intentional.

The issue is: I hate emptiness. I love depth-ridden characters. Obviously this book is the complete opposite of that, yet I cannot knock it for being so - that was the point. It is written to be an echo and it is masterfully crafted. However, it sometimes felt slow for me because the book did not possess the motivators that usually keep me reading.

Its message and its execution were amazing, but I can also recognise it was not entirely 'my thing'.
As an art form, gorgeous. From a personal standpoint, not entirely for me.