This really is a tough one to review. How to do the story justice and accurately convey the content without any spoilers? To start with, the writing style is excellent. Really high quality as well as captivating and 'conversational'. The characters are also developed very well and the reader really gets to know them as the story progresses. In that context I really enjoyed reading it. On the downside, certain parts of the book were quite 'heavy' and depressing. I don't know whether this is a completely subjective view but it sometimes went too far to the extent that it made it less enjoyable and even a bit unpleasant. I'm sure this sort of thing happens in real life and valuable insight can be offered into how bad things can get for some people which should make us appreciate what we have and realise how lucky we are. But this doesn't necessarily guarantee an enjoyable read - especially when the protagonist's golgotha and subsequent misery start to border on suffocating. As I mentioned above, however, this might just be a subjective opinion from the point of view of a reader who doesn't like his novel riddled with constant problems and feelings of despair. If this is sort of thing is what you like then the aforementioned excellent writing style will actually make this an absolute must-read. Regarding the plot and the ending I felt that it was built up too slowly and unravelled too quickly although - to be fair - I did keep guessing until the end. Overall the book could have been a bit shorter and therefore a bit less depressing. As it has equally strong pluses as well as negatives I would give it 3.5 stars if I could. As this option isn't available I'll go for the 'generous' option and 'upgrade' to 4 because of how readable it was and because you'll love it if you don't mind a bit excessive doom and gloom.