When I started the book I felt that it was going to be a 5⭐ read and for all the right technical reasons it should be.  It's a well written original and emotional story. 

But ultimately my rating system relies on my own feelings after all.  Completely subjective and I am not writing this so that someone else reads it or doesn't read it. 

Ultimately it's not going to stick with me over time. I'm not invested in the story.

There is a trend in contemporary "serious" literature that novels should be snippets of real life, a snapshot of events and leaving the ending open once the author has exhausted the point they wanted to make about society or humanity or whatever.  And this is powerful as it makes us want to think about what exactly it all means and how exactly do we reach the question of which the answer is 42. 

But I'm old and tired and don't care about these questions of meaning.  I just want a fun adventure and a happily ever after ending.  And in that way I am always walking away from from "serious" novels with a sense of sadness and incompleteness.  I already know that relationships are fleeting and that history repeats itself and it's hard to be an individual when you don't fit in the word that was created especially for your experience and others not understanding why you don't feel the way you are supposed to feel because that's how they feel and you have had the same experience. 

But it's a good novel and there is sex in it and everything