Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan was an exhausting read in the beginning.
I almost DNF'D several times, as I just couldn't make myself enjoy the writing style, nor would I even know how to describe it. The properness of it reminded me of a mix of Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro and Normal People by Sally Rooney. It droned on and on and on, and whenever you thought it might pick up pace or something interesting might happen...it didn't. I tried to imagine that I was savoring it, but taking a week to get only a quarter of the way in was not enjoyable. It actually made me lose my reading spark for a good bit, as some books often do - but when I picked it back up a few months later and plowed through it, I found it to be less distasteful. Certain parts stuck out, so I am glad I gave it the chance because I would've missed parts like the following: 

"It had never occurred to her that she might have a boy. Even after a blood test confirmed it, she still could only imagine a smaller version of herself - a mercurial girl, who loved all the girlie things she once did. Elisabeth couldn't help but feel disappointed. She googled 'Can you take a boy to see the Nutcracker?' 'Do boys read Laura Ingralls Wilder?'
 But as soon as she saw Gil, she understood." 

"'The big secret of adulthood is that you never feel settled," Elisabeth said. 'Just unsettled in new ways...'" 

 I feel it could've been better if Sullivan had put in less irrelevancies, used less details in some places. Despite finding some points meaningful, at the end of the day, it was mundane. I wanted to love it, and I am proud of myself for persevering through it, but it just didn't hit where it had the potential to. To each their own, though.