欧宝娱乐

haven't read a book that knocked the breath out of me like this one did in approximately, like, an eon. cerebral, intensely emotional, + passages of airtight suspense. i feel like i raved about the last willis book i read, too. didn't i? (my account's nifty already-read backlog tells me that i indeed did.) yes, the author could've shaved off a hundred pages or three, and the har-har elbowed joke of a supporting character cast (all! of them! stereotyped to the last dotted i and crossed t!) got pretty old after 700 pages of detecktifying. but. BUT. maybe i am jaded and made a crabby cynic by today's pantheon of contemporary literature luminaries -- but this book, which is built around a sci-fi premise, felt like a slap of cold water after all those snooty literary navelgazers, oh my god. to maintain suspense over the aforementioned 700 pages and to keep the reader in relentless page-turning mode over the same number of pages is no small feat. and yeah, the plot took a careening, breathless 180 -- /twice/. i spent the last third of the book bursting sporadically into tears. philosophical issues, death and loss and loneliness, of having the strength to move on after terrible tragedies, yeah it may sound silly and maxed out on the cheese but lemme tell you this book made me afraid of death which /nothing/ does, to say the least the last time i sat in a darkened room watching a drivers' safety video with a dozen other dozing high schoolers.

maybe the thing i loved about it the best was that this was a reverent, down-on-the-knees tribute to literature enacted by a couple of scientists -- that literature and science were melded so artfully in its thematic DNA. A++ for that. A++ in general. except for the christian revivalist quacks. anything but christian revivalist quacks.