*Edit*

I've had to move my rating from 4 to 4.75 stars. I wrote my original review just as I had finished the book, and the dust had indeed not settled. I was left emotionally spent after finishing this, and I don't think I realised how much it was impacting me until I finished reading it.

This rating change is a reflection of my thoughts about whether a book is good because you enjoyed it, or good because it made you feel really intense emotions. I enjoyed most of this book, and when I didn't it was because I felt everything so deeply, and I think that is the sign of a great book. 

*Original*

I'm really torn about my rating for this novel. If I gave each book a separate rating, these would be: 
 
 Book 1 - 5 stars
 Book 2 - 4.75/5 stars
 Book 3 - 3.5 stars 
 
However, as a novel combined I'm not sure where this leaves me, and may come back to alter my rating once the dust has settled.  
 
I thought the audiobook narration for each section was really strong, especially in Book 3. 
 
I loved the writing style, and thought the way stories were told within stories was beautiful. 
 
Book 1 was one of the best things I've read in a very long time.

I'm not sure I've ever been more shocked a cliff hanger ending, I had to stop what I was doing just to process the pure horror of knowing we weren’t going to have an answer, and the way their story was brought up in Book 3 through one of the story-tellers just made me feel all of that again.

 
Book 2 was also really strong, though the story hasn't stayed with me as well as Book 1.
 
Book 3, in my opinion, could have been much shorter and still accomplished a lot of what it has. I didn't have a problem with the Charles/Nathanial/David storyline, but Charlie just got on my nerves SO MUCH. I think much of this was due to the narrator doing such a good job of portraying Charlie's deadpan voice/lack of feeling. This was impressive, but started to feel very oppressive after a while, and towards the end of the novel I just was so frustrated with her and every decision she made. If her sections had been shorter, I think the same effect could have been achieved, but I wouldn't have been as frustrated. I understand that this may have been very intentional, but it just riled me up too much and for far too long. I also didn't care as much about her storyline as a whole, and found it the least compelling. In addition, I felt quite uncomfortable at times with the similarities her illness had to autism, and how this was caused by an illness and not her being born with it. If autism had been brought up, and any differences had been explained, this would have solved this unease, but it wasn't. However, with all this being said and done, the novel was ended really skilfully, and I was in tears by the end. 

In conclusion, Books 1+2 are a masterpiece, Book 3 let it down for me.