The structure of this is so loose feeling… very little punctuation, no real delineation between sentences, no capitalization… between that and the bombardment of names (lots of British public figures) I’m not familiar with and trying to keep all the characters and their dialogue straight in my head I just couldn’t sink into the story and kept feeling I wasn’t retaining anything I was reading.

I loved Obreht’s first novel but just couldn’t connect with the characters in this one. Maybe I’ll come back to it? I like the bleak, harsh setting but it was dragging too much for me to get into.