Stayed up all night to read this in one sitting. I don't have the words for how beautiful this book is.

Actual review also posted at Short & Lazy Book Reviews:

I started this on a whim and ended up reading it late into the night in one sitting. What a magical, wonderful, powerful, painful, engrossing piece of work.

Every character touched on in this is fascinating. Though there are two main characters that the book surrounds, each secondary character feels like a fully developed and real person despite some having very little page time.

I do have to warn that this novel is dark and doesn’t stray from the darkness that surrounds the topic it covers, but…it’s a beautiful way of writing about it, with absolutely none of the sleaziness that a lot of slash-and-kill thrillers write about crime and violence. Every character makes sense. Every scene is beautiful, even when painful. The ending is optimistic without losing any of it’s realism — which is a bit amusing to write, considering half the novel deals with the power of imagination in dealing with trauma.

The last time I can remember wanting to immediately re-read a novel when I finished the last page was with Burial Rites, another novel that deals with cold and dark themes but is beautiful and treats them with respect and weight.

I want everyone to read this book even though I know the topics within are very tough to deal with. IT’S JUST SO GOOD, OKAY???