This is a gimmick book, which in itself isn't a bad thing if there's a good story in there. Maybe there was a such thing in this, but unfortunately for me all that was buried under heaps of problems.

The first ninety pages were a positive surprise. A man writing a fifteen-year-old girl in first person voice can only end up in disaster, was my first thought and indeed it was too good to last. Because the first time jump and second part started the stalker trend.

Instead of continuing writing Holly's story from her perspective, Mitchell does everything in his power to reduce her into a pawn and object in the lives of men around her. Holly disappears into the background and is only shown through glimpses in the moments most important to her life and story.

A one night stand, a would be husband, the love of her adult life, and then the world saving or ending battle through an alien black woman. That's a bad description but it's the best I can do for the fifth narrator and point of view character. To add insult to the injury Mitchell uses POC to refer to a "Pear Occident Company" and reduces the immortals into small minded trans-phobics with a single line.

Fun times end with a second short part from Holly's point of view and with her aged voice, but it's too little too late. The story, its characters, and the author had already lost me for good.

...maybe you'll climb out of it at some point but the smart ones drive off the bridge right at the beginning.

Oh, wow. That turned out more meta than I intended.

Anyhoo. The first chapter is called The Bridge, it's only two pages long and it's the only good chapter in this book of 521 pages. There were a handful of good observations or amusing passages here or there, but nothing resembling a coherent, well written, good story. And I wasted all three weeks of my holiday reading it. So. Boring.

I have an itch to read The Handmaid's Tale at some point, so I won't say I won't be reading Atwood ever again. But it's a close thing.

Although everything could be explained with his grief over George's death—you know what I mean—it still felt too much like the author didn't really want to change the narrators. Like she hadn't really wanted to tell the story from Shaun's point of view but wished she'd could have kept using George's voice. Shaun was a rounded character in the first book, his own man with certain questionable attachments and characteristics, but here he felt like a shadow of George. And not just because he was grieving.

Of course the end twist explains why all this is, but you know what, I'd rather have skipped right to it, instead of suffer through an inferior installment. Shaun deserves better.

I didn't check the characterisation fail box on my shelf-list, but it was a close thing.

Narrators were good, so good in fact, that I had to double check the names to make sure they weren't the same people as in book one.

I really don't like alternating or multiple first person voices. That twist towards the end, will probably mean other things for other people, but for me it means the story should have ended there. Full stop.

Won't stop me from listening to Shaun's book, though.

P.S. Paula Christensen was a really good audio narrator.

I've no idea how this book works if you're not a fan of the podcast but all I have to say about it is: Puppy! 

Now I'll have to find out exactly what kind of a puppy it is. This is Night Vale after all.