Lionel Shriver, in the voice of Shep, expressed how I felt about this book.

"Remember how sometimes, in the middle, a movie seems to drag? I get restless, and take a leak, or go for popcorn. But sometimes, the last part, it heats up, and then right before the credits one of us starts to cry - well, then you forget about the crummy middle, don't you? You don't care about the fact that it started slow, or had some plot twist along the way that didn't scan. Because it moved you, because it finally pulled together, you think, when you walk out, that was a good movie, and you're glad you went." (404)

I am glad that I perservered with this book, because the last section of the book did make it all worth it.

Some of my favorite quotes:

"He [Jackson] reserved special contempt for the accountants and lawyers, both of whom slyly implied that they were on your side, when this bloated, parasitic caste of interlocutors effectively constituted a penumbral extension of the State, their extortionate fees amounting to more taxes." (76)

"It doesn't make any earthly sense that just because I take on an employee to clear other people's hairy drains, suddenly I'm supposed to pay for his ingrown toenails." (250)

"You had to make do with the years of their lives that the dead left you instead." (426)