5 stars++ for the first half. It was hilarious, especially when they started getting really meta. I was inspired to make a lot of Kindle Notes in response to the jokes. 
 About halfway through the book I thought they were going to become self-aware. There's a line: 
 "If there really is a Narrative, it's not on him right now," Dahl said. 
 This seemed to indicate to me that they were aware that they were creating their own narrative by taking strong actions. This struck me as a really powerful theme to draw out of the concept of the book, where people who feel their bit characters learn to take control of their own lives. You can see the progress of my excitement and my eventual disappointment chronicled in my kindle notes and highlights. 
 Once they start resolving the main plot everything starts to work out so well for them that it seemed to lose all tension. Honestly it all just felt a little too pat, I was expecting more conflict with (view spoiler)[ the writers when they're told they need to wrap up their lucrative television series because fictional people were dying (hide spoiler)]. 
 That it really was the ending caught me off guard, because the main plot resolved after only 75% of the way through. After there follow a series of codas related to side characters. These codas are a slog, they took me longer to read than the first three quarters of the book combined. They each have interesting observations on their own, but with the tension of the book's plot already resolved I found myself just wanting it to be over. When (view spoiler)[ Samantha ran in to Weinstein on the beach at the end there I would have given up in disgust had the book not been truly over at that point (hide spoiler)]. It totally invalidated all of the philosophical musings she had just been through. 
 Anyways, main story is great. Just don't bother with the codas.