Some really nice passages, but really uninteresting characters mixed with an iffy cadence and disjointed organization made this an ultimately taxing, yet boring read about the lives of very boring adults. ( )

I was rapt by the first section of the book, and then slowly started to hate the whole thing. There is an objective reason for this, which a superior reviewer has told me: this is really four novellas, not one novel, and I can imagine being much more enthralled by the whole thing had I read it over a period of eight years, instead of eight days.

There is also a subjective reason for this: reading the first section, it was clear that the book is identity political literature for rich white people, which is essentially what I am. I kept waiting for the book to develop some critical bite, but instead, it got softer and softer and nudged me to sympathise more and more with these horrible people (qui? c'est moi). It was a repulsive experience.

Having said that, I'd much rather read this than a single page of K Ove K, the last volume of whose Struggle is glaring at me from the half-read pile. ( )