In the beginning I loved this and thought it was a really good story with great characters, everything seemed pretty much believable. And as the book went on it got weirder, but it was the kind of story that was always going to have weird undertones, and that’s pretty much what fiction is for after all. And then it kept going and went completely off the rails and I wondered what on earth the author thought they were up to as it was all going totally over my head and I couldn’t make rhyme nor reason for anything.

And then I discovered it was all a riff on Antigone, which I’d missed entirely, and I only have the vaguest passing familiarity with Antigone. So yeah. I was left not being quite sure what to make of it. I missed out on any hints in the text that it was a modern retelling of an old story, and unlike other similar retellings I’ve read it didn’t seem to make standalone sense. Half of a good story really, that left me feeling a bit dumb. I will try the author again sometime though!