There is a very deliberate presentation of…

There is a very deliberate “presentation of the theme” here — a bit too deliberate for my taste: you can see the pieces of the pattern that come together really really well. I feel like I’m looking at a mosaic path, but the grout lines are too wide and too obvious to be truly beautiful. Definitely not a seamless delineation here! Not that the theme is not a worthy one, or that the characters not endearing, or that the setting or the telling not convincing. It’s just that the book never rises above the “one revelation” level and that kind of brought down the distinguishing quality for me.