This isn't my preferred reading material, but I can certainly appreciate the flow from a black and white world into a world full of color. (And yes, I am both writing directly and metaphorically, as the writer has done.) 
 I found myself wanting more action, or intentionality, but them's the breaks. As a piece of traditional literature, this novel works better, in the way that Margaret Atwood tends to gravitate toward that genre and away from a more serious dystopian sci fi, falling into singular themes and attempting to focus the reader into the same kind of straight jacket that the characters have had to endure. As a prospective fantasy, I would rather have seen a greater fall into darkness before the eventual climb into light, rather than the razor's edge of memories-as-conflict-resolution. 
 Again, it just didn't speak to me as much as I'd hope it would. I can still appreciate the craft put into it, and it was still good. I just can't bring myself to say it was great.