I feel pretty conflicted about this book because there were portions, ranging in length from a couple paragraphs to a few pages, which I thought were fantastic, but there were also long portions that just seemed to drag on. I enjoyed the general themes, especially in the second half of the book, but the pacing was rather boring. I am generally a fan of slow-paced, character-driven novels, but this one felt like it was slow for the sake of being slow, describing every detail of certain elements of Petra's life, instead of spending that time diving into her character, be it implicitly or explicitly. It's really too bad because, as I said, there were portions that I found very well done! 

I also find the romance between Bill and Petra a little weird because he was described in the novel as a grown man while Petra was a highly impressionable teenager, then he suddenly becomes a love interest. I don't think I'd find such an age gap weird if we met Bill as an adult but because their gap was such a major element of the narrative of the first half of the book, it definitely rubbed me the wrong way. I do understand philosophically what it means for her to end up with him, or at least be implied to, but I still am not fully on board