This book was one of the most painful and beautiful works I have read in a long time. I ached reading it and I ached when I finished it. It is also one of the loveliest voices I have read in a long time, a delicate mix of 3rds that slides from one character to another, from an epic/omni to the deeply personal and right back out again. One of the finest examples of a voice perfectly suited to its story. I could not imagine any other way to tell this, and yet I would never have thought to write it like this. And it goes without saying that it nailed the ending, with another deliberate authorial choice and an utterly satisfying turn of events. Mastery from start to finish.