''I so very much wanted to love this cli fi novel. And let me say first that it is utterly, beautifully written. The insight into human nature, the wit, the erudition, the prose itself, all breathtaking. The main character is fascinating and his obsession with the quantification as a method for contemplating mortality, developing him as a character and making some profound musings on our relationship with death...all fascinating. However, as with many books where the plot is conceived before hand and the characters forced into actions that support that plot, the story itself doesn't work. I found the disaster scenes flat and derivative and the plot wildly lurching from that point forward...it's all downhill once they leave the apartment. The central absent romance doesn't make sense as the plot develops...though it has a tender touch during the obsessive insights into his office bound thoughts, which are the best parts of the book. I could barely finish this book and I didn't care what happened. Didn't care. And that's a shame, because it's a beautiful book and he's a beautiful writer, but at some point the story loses its authenticity. And becomes unoriginal, un-insightful and just plain boring. Maybe his next book?...this much talent with a better endgame could be spectacular.''
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