What a happy novel! O_O 
 This novel is Joycean in its prose and sad/tragic/melancholy/pessimistic/nihilistic/lachrymose in its plot. However, the one thing that everybody's talking about with this novel is how it's written. The only novel I can possibly compare this to is Finnegan's Wake. At first the prose is an enigma and that may put some people off immediately but eventually you get used to the frenetic, stream of conciousness style. I'd like to say that the prose is a revelation in modern writing BUT the problem with it is that it does, at points, effect the narrative. If the prose ever gets in the way of conveying the plot then that's a big no-no. Sadly that happens way too often in this novel. There are part of this where you're just thinking, "I have no idea what's going on here". However, that's fine I think. Nobody's ever going to fully understand what's going on in this novel, just like how people are still finding new things in "Ulysses" almost 100 years after its publication. Let this novel just wash over you like a complex wave of sheer greatness.