I fall firmly on the side of “loved” with this polarizing novel, which is ostensibly about a man who mutates into a shark. I went in thinking it was a love story between this man and a woman named Wren, and it absolutely is - but it took a turn I wasn’t expecting, and is equally a story about family and a mother’s love.
I found Habeck’s writing style so moving, and delighted in her use of similar metaphors or turns of phrase used in different contexts throughout the story: the endless sky, the stars, the wind, a kite string, a treehouse, the stem of a pear, learning the difference between loneliness and being alone. Just brain tingly great to spot echoes between characters, past and present. I  also loved segments of the book that were in very short bursts, written like a play, sometimes even a few lines per page that created the a sense of urgency and made the pages fly by (literally and figuratively).
Not once did this fictional world, wherein animal mutations are a legitimate medical diagnosis, feel ridiculous. Few books can make me shed a tear, but there were some excruciatingly sad moments, all surrounding the idea of your loved one mutating into something that isn’t human. Really the crux of it is change, the inevitability that things end, sometimes (a lot of the time), when we least expect. Smarter people that I could probably put a finer point on what this novel is really about, but I will attempt to say that it is about love and letting go, while also holding on for the ride that is life.

“he was an aimless kite, in search of a string to ground him to the world, but instead, he’d found Wren, a great, strong wind, who supported his exploration of the sky.”