Kindle. I'm very late to this party. I hoped to understand what it was all about after not understanding a thing back in 2013. Lengthy, overly so, and the mirrored split-narrative structure made following enough details too difficult to satisfy or enjoy; it took a fair bit of ploughing. I spent the entire first chapter wondering why Mitchell was telling me these things (about colonialism in Polynesia), and the second too (English composers in Belgium). Things clicked into gear with the Raymond Chandler-esque Luisa Rey hard-boiled noir, but the later switchbacks showed he was more invested in the character than the plot or yarn. The Somni arc in the Korean corporatocracy sequence was familiar from the Matrix sequels that predated this novel. (I wonder if he could have separated compelled consumerism from corporate hierarchy.) I didn't get into the post-apocalyptic anthropology on Hawaii.
Too much time is spent moving characters around to no real end. The variety of writing styles may amaze some but the underlying stories and characterisation are not stellar. Everyone ends up a winner.
Goodreads. Reviews were legion.
