I had put this off for a bit when I'd tried Space Opera and found it not my thing, but this was smooth and easy reading. With postmodern elements in play, our narrator a mix in Russian folklore and grander writing traditions that grip her story away from her. It was immediately compelling for me, though it comes with some drawbacks when a reader (like me) isn't very familiar with the entrenched folklore. There's no real anticipation, just the enjoyment of being on a ride that is not a rollercoaster. No rails, who knows when it will end, and who knows exactly what will happen, nor the stakes involved. Because of it, familiar readers will probably click more deeply with it than me.

But I found it engaging and interesting throughout. And because you're told early on that in a story like this, some of it "actually" happened and some didn't, and the nature of the story as an entity itself being meta, even without established stakes, it was more than enough to chew on.