Bleak. Reading this took a large psychological toll on me. Theres no hope to be found in this section of the book... ( )

Bleak. Reading this took a large psychological toll on me. Theres no hope to be found in this section of the book... ( )

Ug. The book is completely beautiful. But I can’t recommend anyone who to anyone who hasn’t found it on their own personal literary journey, and that’s because of this section/book. It’s a cavalcade of dark descriptions of death, over and over, spanning years. Hundreds of pages of this with a sprawling story mixed in. I’m sure I missed connections because I was reading to just get through the descriptions and back to the narrative. The key to getting this book, I think, is that those two things are one and the same. And the prose is beautiful. But tiring. There were big chunks of time where I didn’t read the book at all, certainly not before bed or first thing in the morning. Before I learned to do the aforementioned avoidance during the quiet hours of the day, the book kinda took a dump on a couple of days. So be careful. All that said, this is an amazing book and one that will haunt me, for good and bad, for a long time. ( )

Exceptionally graphic. ( )