So, this was ballsy; I’ve got to give it that. It makes a wonderful point embedded structurally in the text: Those whom get to write history, have the ear of the public, affluence, etc.—are predictable. Possessing the derivative nature of the privileged often deadens the actual brilliant persona and persons in history. A kind of erasure reserved for those of excellence that do not happen to be white rich men, typically.

I think it does this pretty cleverly and the method keeps the pace going even when the craft there is very blasé. There are plenty of blank pages and formatting that clips you along. This is needed because the first entire half of the book is fairly trite. You need the the rush of flying through pages. Then, when the intertextuality examines said issues in the first half itself, it unlocks the Point, which does, I think, make it worth consuming. It’s ballsy, as I said, because I almost bailed on this thing multiple times for better reads because it’s essentially purposefully… bad. And at the start of the book. How many writers would try that?

Ultimately, it kind of means I have to place it at three stars because of how I rate books (3 stars meets the expectations set by the text, 4 stars exceeds expectations, 5 stars more than that) -despite- being fairly novel when it comes to the conclusion, because the mark that it aims to hit—the expectations set by the novel—requires a slog and faith that isn’t completely apparent from the onset. Only for it to then just exactly make its point at the end. There’s no room to exceed my expectations. And it asks more of the reader to do so.

If another reader really got on with the prose work and/or was particularly enamoured with a particular character voice, which, the last chapter I was happy to read partly because it -was- the only engagingly crafted voice, then I think it could easily be a higher rated book… for that reader. For me, the prose work is pretty consistently out-of-the-way and not much more. Bog standard contemporary voice, basically. Unusual structure would usually give it a boost, but again, it’s a point it barely pulls off. So yeah, it does the thing. With some daring. Which isn’t nothing. Is it worth reading? It really depends if you have the kind of stamina and faith in the writer to actually get to the end. And that you resonate with what the author attempts to communicate. I think it will be a difficult book to recommend to most people.