On one hand, this quarantine of friends isn’t all that novel—apart from the conceit that they’re doing it for COVID 19 reasons—and it is also, a hair too self-indulgent at times with length and parallels between a character and author, perhaps. On the other, I think it is peopled very well, the character work absolutely showcase, and houses numerous empathetic, genuinely moving moments, that many books haven’t pulled off a one of, let alone a few. It is also actually quite funny, I found. Which will come down to taste, since there’s quite a few things in the sights, so to speak. What is targeted felt like a natural extension of the characters, though, so I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.

The audiobook may be the superior way to consume this. A bunch of other reviewers don’t seem to like the tone all that much, so I wonder if being a bit removed, with the excellent, excellent narration by Shapiro (an Armie Hammer lite, in a fantastic way). It feels like something that would jump off the page, based on the narration. If not, well, more props to Shapiro, then.