It was eerily unsettling to read this after having lived through a pandemic, but knowing this was written 6 years before a pandemic. The pandemic in the book came on much faster and stonger than in the real world. We are recovering at different speeds, too. But still, the story is prescient.

This was my least favorite of ESJM's books. But I do love how the characters in all her books orbit each other. A character merely mentioned in one book gets a speaking role in another, this sort of thing. It makes the reading experience more layered and interesting.