Well. It's done. I've finally answered the incessant call of this book and gotten over this hurdle. It was an excellent read although akin to laying on a slab with a bladed pendulum getting closer to my middle. I don't even know what that means. But that's what it felt like while I was reading it. I just knew something horrible was going to happen. And I guessed it right, too. I escaped the pendulum, but it still hurts. 
 It made me a little panicky, tense, want to cry (I resisted heroically) and think too deeply of my own mortality. It made me want to shout out profanity and just bawl (which I resisted heroically). So in the end I give it 4 stars because it was a great book. I withhold one because now I feel depressed and horrible.