This is one of those novels where a clever fantasy conceit ends up being an emotionally devastating metaphor. My only issue is the rigidly gendered ways the characters respond to their fates, especially with the Tiganian characters. However, I still found it extremely riveting, with the inexorable propulsion to the end putting a weight on your chest.

So I love this book, but I'm kind of glad that I never read it when I was younger. I would have been enamored by the utopian brilliance of this make-believe world of academia.

HOLY EXPLETIVE EXPLETIVEBALLS. Nothing in the world would ever fix my face, which is now a deathmask of dismay and horror. I need to process this book. And trigger warnings for the end, geez.

I found the story meandering but oddly compelling, a reserved slice of life with a lot of passions roiling underneath. It opens in 1947, as a group of loosely connected characters are sifting through the useless rubble of their lives after the war. It then jumps backwards twice to 1944 and 1941, during the period of great trauma for England. Ironically, it's in the war that the characters felt more alive to me, active agents of their own fates. Apparently, there are more scintillating Waters novels out there, and this book has piqued my interest.