This is a beautifully crafted book, with a wealth of characters interconnected across time and space. I really enjoy books in general which follow this style of chapters from individual characters perspectives, even the same character with different names at different times mixed in as well. The characters themselves are extremely varied and each of them grows over the course of their stories. One result of having such diversity, unfortunately, is that although I liked every character, and they had depth, I never spent enough time with a single one of them to become emotionally invested. So even though the book was amazing to read from an intellectual point, it did miss that emotional hit. 

Plot wise it’s also an engaging read. The way everything is connected is complex but still accessible which is a real achievement, so many times I’ve seen books which try to do something similar but miss the mark by going too far. Everything seems to tie together nicely in the end, and although I’m sure I will have missed some subtilties with just one read I don’t feel like I missed anything major. The writing itself was smooth and easy to read, the characters each had their own voice without the need to resort to phonetic spelling to give someone an accent, a trope I find irritating personally… 

 It's a brilliantly complex story, full of deep characters and requires some attention to read but not so much to be inaccessible to your average reader, would recommend it to many people as a good one to sit with when in a contemplative mood.