This is a book that only gets in the way of itself. I wanted to like it, and managed to finish it in spite of its best stylistic efforts to thwart that. I feel like the book has an important story and the bones of something good, but it is so overwritten and intentionally obtuse and opaque that it becomes a chore to read. Characters and their stories become shallow and underexplored and in spite of the deliberate use of Bible imagery, somehow even thematic resonance gets lost in the jumble of intentional word salad.

I think the step after purple prose is red flags.