This isn't my usual genre, but I really enjoyed the book—or at the very least, the first two thirds of the story or so. The central mystery was compelling, just like all the smaller mystery springing up from underneath it. I very much enjoyed how the story was constructed, with all the shifts in timelines and POVs, and certain parts getting showed from the POVs of outsiders: waiters, hairdressers, neighbors, clients. It gave the book more of a cinematic feel and strongly drew attention to what I felt was the central theme—how people and relationships look vs what they are really like. It also made sense for the number of scenes from the POVs of central characters increased, as we got deeper and deeper to the heart of the story. This harmony of shape and substance was probably my favorite part of the book. 

The whole tangled web of family secrets, delayed hurts, conflicts, disagreements, and misunderstandings was really compelling. There was a whole lot stuff here: the sibling rivalries, the changing relationships between parents and grown-up children, life in retirement, parental expectations, mistakes of previous generations still weighing heavily on their descendants, mental health, chronic illness, and so much more. Somehow, all the elements worked really well together to create a vibrant, believable landscape of a complicated family.

Once all the puzzle pieces were on the table, though, I felt like they got slotted together just a little too neatly and the good ending was a little too good. Also, a few of the last chapters—the ones between the first covid mention and the quite fitting very last chapter—felt kind of tacked on, like the author decided to extend the story for no real reason. Maybe to ground it more in the present day reality, with all the pandemic impact. In that sense, I guess it worked, but it still felt like the story was already over and who knew why the characters were hanging around.