Fates and furies

At first, I found this book to be melodramatic, written in an overly-literary style. The fractured timeline felt fumbled, forced, and confusing while the characters were poorly depicted and unlike-able, so I had no image of them in my brain and carved no space for them in my heart.

However, by the second act, it grew on me. It fit Mathilde's consciousness much better than Lotto's, and her story and her character are more interesting, anyways. The writing seemed to make more sense as I began to see the meta of it, the play within the play, the tragedy. I still found the bracketed asides to be a bit much, but will admit once I let go of the absurdity of it, I fell in deeply. And though on the whole a bit depressing, in the end I found it to be...touching, almost hopeful, and in its own way, rather beautiful.

Though a slow starter and definitely not for everyone, if you can get past the hammed-up writing and poor character writing, it's a decent read.