I Quit.

I turned off Ramona Ausubel's No One is Here Except All of Us today, three hours into the book. Part was narrator trauma, part was the flowery writing, part was the feeling that this was a short story that got turned into a novel against its will. Must we describe the rain— and everything else— quite so thoroughly? It also suffered from a POV problem. The main character is an eleven-year-old girl. How does she know what is being said in her parents' bedroom? I'll go ahead and assume she knows a cabbage is being hurled in there because of the thud.... No, I'm not kidding.

Another problem might be entirely unique to me, but there's a creeping discomfort to a book that is showcasing a lavish writing style and odd, mystical storyline against the Holocaust. Part of my brain is yelling "run!" so loudly that I can't relax into the book. And nobody does run. There's a lot of groupthink in this village. We'll call that strike three. Off to try my luck again at Audible.