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Okay, so I’m, you know, obviously filling in for Nicole today, and I have to tell you I finished the book like two weeks ago, and I don’t really care about the concept of spoilers (I would have been an amazing Greek in the Golden Age, when men were born with the knowledge of the time and manner of their deaths), so if anyone wants to talk about the end of the book, I’m not going to yell at you in the comments. This isn’t really a book you can put down, I think? Or like, sure, you can do whatever, life’s a rich tapestry, but once I got into it I wasn’t going to walk away from in order to interact with other people or watch more YouTube videos about Atlantis. Once you’re in, you’re in.
There were a few times when I had to set it down and take some DEEP BREATHS, for sure, because I am a charmed infant with the constitution of a coddled egg, and there’s some heavy stuff here. Or, you know, exclusively heavy stuff, and it’s interesting to see which characters draw back from pain and which characters embrace it and which characters pretend it doesn’t exist.
Also, this section has a lot of Ti-Pierre in it, and he’s a really difficult character to get past. He’s the most twisted, vicious version of the Nice Guy that I can possibly think of, and I had a slightly painful physical reaction every time I saw his name on the page.
It was a relief, at times, to go back and learn more about Michael and Miri’s relationship (what are your feelings about Michael? I have ENDLESS SYMPATHY FOR HIM, because in his eyes I see myself, or something), or her parents’ marriage; it felt like Roxane had a great sense for when the reader had had “enough” — she’s a much more merciful captor than the Commander. Did you have more of a problem with the actively terrible characters, or the characters who were ostensibly “on” Miri’s side, but found it difficult to act decisively on her behalf? You can be mad at both, of course.
I AM SO EXCITED TO GET TO THE NEXT PART SO WE CAN TALK SOME MORE ABOUT LORRAINE, but in the meantime I will content myself by saying: Lorraine. I have thoughts and feelings about Lorraine and Miri’s relationship.
Okay, you have three weeks to finish the book, then we can all come back and talk about THE ENDING. THE ENDINGGGGG.
Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.