I had a very mixed reaction to this book - I did find it easy to fall into and read, but it was also kind of trying because each character has their own part, and it felt like starting over each time you were abruptly switch to an entirely new story. The siblings’ stories were obviously connected, but varying degrees of estrangement between them made it so that the characters were hardly part of the others’ stories. When I finished the first half I was really unenthused about the remainder, feeling like I was leaving characters I cared about for ones I didn’t. Still, the second half swept me away again once I picked it back up. Overall, I found each part to be fast-paced separately, but I was missing momentum to carry me between the parts. ⁣
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I loved many of the characters, especially some of the side-characters who are sketched in with care and just the right amount of detail. Allison in her review describes how two of the siblings receive privilege checks from their non-white partners in a way that felt stilted to her. I don’t know if I would have picked up on it as strongly without her observation, but I absolutely agree, and really found most of the conflicts in the novel pretty heavy-handed. I wasn’t able to find any reviews of this novel by Romani readers, and while the portrayal of the Romani fortune teller was somewhat nuanced, I still felt like this novel played into harmful stereotypes about this marginalized group of people, and I was uncomfortable with that aspect. (Side note: based on scrolling Goodreads I feel like a lot of reviewers don’t know, or just don’t care, that g*psy is a slur, so just fyi don’t use that term.)⁣