Reflections

I did not enjoy this book as much as I hoped to, but I think it will have its audience. It's driven by plot, setting and, to some extent, ideas, rather than getting into the hearts and minds of its characters, which is my preference. It has an omniscient narrator who directly addresses the reader as in, "We shall speed ahead here . . .", a technique I find irritating and distracting. The title and opening epigraph are intriguingly thought provoking, but the book ends with a bold-text, paragraph-long moral, as if the author didn't trust the power of his story or understanding of his reader. What drew me to this book initially was believing it might resemble Rebecca Goldstein's "philosophical" novel, The Mind Body Problem, a character driven book full of ideas that I'm still thinking about, that inspired me to research and read other books, fiction and nonfiction. This book with its dictated be-here-now message doesn't hold the same charm for me.