Amanda

I enjoyed the premise of the story where all these characters, hundreds of years apart, are connected by a single story, written many years ago, nearly lost to time.

The pacing felt very uneven, with about the beginning 40% feeling extremely slow and dragged on. Each character’s stories were unique and but not necessarily interesting. There was a theme of loss of childhood throughout each characters’ backgrounds which makes sense why the interwoven story of a paradise so appealing to each character.

Konstance’s was most interesting to me. What she learned really ties all the story lines together. Omeir & Anna’s stories seemed very isolated from the others and detracted from how each character was linked with the another. Maybe I missed something. 🤷‍♀️

I couldn’t decide whether I liked the book overall. Felt quite average and felt much of it could have been pared down without much impact to the overall story.

I read this book on audio and will definitely need to go back and read on a physical format. Puzzle examples don’t lend well to audio, however the author did a great job keeping the audio engaging.

I enjoyed the perspective that Jacobs shared. It was highly thought provoking, offering different perspectives of solving puzzles. I tend to gravitate towards puzzles and love working on them so the content matter was engaging for me. It was interesting to hear about puzzles not being just logic based but also requiring creativity and ingenuity!

This was oddly more thought provoking than I anticipated. There were lots of relevant-to-life concepts about knowledge, acquiring it, and using it. The fiction got a little too philosophically real at times. 🤣

The first 50% felt terribly slow. The early setting was simple and easy to understand. Normally, yes, the early exposition in fantasy makes sense, but not so much here. There’s dust and books- not difficult to wrap your head around.

The POV changes right as things are getting interesting in one POV were also jarring. It felt like watching an episode with a cliffhanger at the end- “but wait, there’s more!” That formula works well for visual media but was annoying to read.

Ironically, but very relevant- having a lot of knowledge didn’t seem to do anyone much good. Also, I really want a Mechanism.