It took me a very long time to get into this book, but the more I read it, the more I enjoyed it. It just took so long that by the time I was invested, there wasn't a whole lot of book left.

The narration was so jumbled, which was both a positive and negative for me. It's the majority of the reason it took me so long to care about what I was reading. At times it was borderline incoherent. But at the same time, that worked really well as it was telling the stories of these drug addicts. Their thoughts weren't coherent, so it made sense that the book wasn't either. By the end I really appreciated that.

I loved watching Fred/Bob lose himself. It was so interesting and while I've read other books that tackled that basic premise, I've never seen it done quite like this. There was no solid line between them, just an uneven tide. It was fascinating.

His author's note at the end left kind of a weird aftertaste for me. This didn't feel so much like a book about drug addiction so much as it did a book about the corrupt systems in place around drugs. Thematically, there was so much more about cops than there was addicts, for all that the book followed a group of addicts. It felt like I was on a completely different page from the author, which was a really strange feeling. And honestly, I think it made me feel a bit more negatively toward this book than I would have otherwise.

Such an interesting book. I'm not sure how much I actually enjoyed it, but it did make me think a lot. I'm definitely down to try another of Dick's books. I don't think he'll be a new favorite for me, but I like an author that makes me think.