I thought this book was tryhard silliness. Groff would write complex, sometimes beautiful prose, but when I tried to figure out what individual sentences meant, I was frequently left bewildered. She described places, which meant that the setting, which was a hippie commune called Arcadia in the first part of the book, was the most well-developed character in the novel. And since we were actually following a guy named Bit, it was a bit revealing that no one in our book club actually felt like we knew anything about him, but we could basically draw you a map of the commune compound.
The thing I did appreciate about the novel was that the narrator was unreliable through the entire novel, but for entirely different reasons. At first, it was because he was a child. Then it was because he was heartbroken. Then it was because he was in love. So you always had to search for context clues (often written in an indecipherable wall of text), but it was sort of like a little mystery within the story.
My fellow book club members seemed to like the book a bit more than I did, although I don't think it's going on anyone's list of favorite books anytime soon.
I might pick this up. I'm a big fan of indecipherable walls of text.
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