not for me

This was a weird one for me. I've had it in my Audible wishlist for months and was really, really looking forward to it. So I was excited to finally listen to it. And then.

I hated the writing.
It was an ok book with a very interesting premise, but it got bogged down in the morass of florid, soppy, try-hard-philosophical prose, and the need to provide social and political commentary (in the most heavy-handed way possible).
Here's the thing. People enjoy "lush prose." I don't get it, but... people like it. If that's your thing, you'll love this. It was practically purple. It had that sort of whimsical, almost subversive-fairytale vibe that so many people enjoy (but I find tedious and overbearing). It was a lot. Lots of kings and kingdoms and sort of fairytale language describing states and presidents, for instance. So again, if you're into that style, you'll enjoy it a heck of a lot more than I did.

Ok, so. I've had a bit of time to ruminate, I think I was actually really disappointed by this, and not just because the writing style wasn't to my taste. The story was thin. Really thin. And the conclusion was staggeringly anticlimactic. It's like it didn't know what it wanted to be, so it tried to be everything and didn't manage to really be anything.
The characters weren't developed enough for it to be a character piece. The family dynamic/relationship wasn't developed enough for it to be one of those ever popular general fictions about a messed up family coming to terms with itself (although I think this was what it was supposed to be), the supernatural stuff was interesting but it felt unnecessary and tacked on strictly to make the story more interesting (or maybe to hammer home the idea that the main characters were "other" even in their own community). It would have ended up the same whether or not there were ghosts, or one of the characters could half-predict death.
Then there's the mystery part, which is why I was do eager to read the book. It was very,very basic. Serial child rapist picks on the wrong kid, gets killed, life goes on, nothing really changes (except it brings the protagonist's family back together). The mystery is not actually a mystery, it's a plot device. A MacGuffin, almost. It serves as a catalyst for the resolution of the family drama part of the story. We know who the killer is at maybe the first third of the book. We quickly learn his motivations, and what his endgame is. There is exactly no sense of urgency or tension and revealing who the villain is so early in the game was kind of... deflating?
Two nitpicks: first, the book uses the "boys who are sexually abused grow up to be sexusl abusers" trope, which is something I find problematic, and also lazy. I can see how the author might have been trying to spotlight generational abuse or something, maybe, but I think the same points could have been made without resorting to that harmful stereotype.
Second, and this is a genuine nitpick, the protagonist was a twin. A female twin with a male twin brother. So, fraternal twins. But a huge deal was made of the fact that they were conjoined at birth. At the index finger, but, still, conjoined. That's not possible. I mean, I know, I know, it's a magical realism story, there are ghosts and psychic powers but THIS is what you're unable to suspend your disbelief for? I don't know, it just bothered me.

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