The word that most comes to mind is unsatisfying. I was really looking forward to this and maybe it was just a case of right book, wrong time but I really struggled. The first two thirds were flat out boring. I paused in reading it and might have DNFed if I wasn't on a long coach journey and felt that all snuggled up and concentrated was the right atmosphere. I was right, as it happens, because the book definitely picked up in the final arc and I'm definitely glad I finished it.

I was perhaps expecting more magical realism. But the writing was so clunky and heavy, so visceral and sometimes downright odd that none of the whimsy and mystery could come across. None of the characters made sense - their motivations were all over the place, and all the dialogue read the same, regardless of age, sex or class.

But it was (eventually) very readable and accomplished.