I’ve never read her previous novel, but I picked this up on a whim in a book store and breezed through it. Very nicely developed and written, exploring themes of solitude and identity. The main character is one of the most charming that I’ve encountered in a very long time, sweet in a way that wasn’t annoying — really quite a feat in itself I think.

It’s really inventive and has a “world-building” (although I’m loathe to use that term, it’s probably the best term to use) that is beautiful and mysterious. To my taste she revealed neither too little nor too much.

One less-than-positive thought was that I felt the reader was a bit too far ahead of Piranesi in regards to the unraveling of the mystery. You kind of get the gist of what’s going on much earlier (basically at the beginning) than it may have meant to be explained. But to me it didn’t matter because the wonder of the book is just being with Piranesi as he learns about the world around him.