Why did you read this book?: Because we liked The Luminaries so much.

Has Beckie read it?: She’s reading it. By the time this post appears she may be done.

42 word review: Debut published when Catton was 22. About artistic teens and sex scandal, with very nonlinear plot and various tricks with reality and characters’ roles. Incredibly ambitious, inventive, and flawed. Some gorgeous sentences. No idea what was happening by end; still mostly enchanted.

Rating: 3 1/2 gumnuts (out of 5). I would have given it 4 immediately after I finished it, but has lowered a notch in my mind afterward because I didn’t follow the ending. This is the opposite of the usual for me, as usually my immediate reaction to a book is preoccupied by my reaction to the ending, and only later do I think about it more as a whole.