If Erin Morgenstern takes up writing for evil, this is something that would result.
I want to give this book five stars because it's so meticulous, recursively written. Infuriatingly. Meticulously. Recursively... Bah! It's an impressive construction, but I found it pretty boring. And because I was bored, I didn't pay close enough attention to it. And then I was frustrated by constant reminders that I couldn't remember each of the times a particular character, metaphor, motif, symbol had appeared before.
This book had me bawling my eyes out at several points. It's a lamentation. A gratuitous stab to the heart.
But I wasn't convinced of Jude's utter hopelessness at the end and am actually pretty annoyed with how it resolved. However, given the uninterrupted torture of Jude's backstory, I really didn't expect anything different.