Ferris is a super talented writer. Almost too talented. His prose is highly crafted to the point of being less accessible than “dumber” writers. I appreciated the first ⅔ of the book more than I liked it. The last ⅓ though revealed the true uniqueness of the author’s vision for the book and was both rewarding and thought-provoking. It was a difficult book to rank, but Ferris’s creativity won me over and the novel holds probably a higher rank than it ultimately will have a couple years from now.