I love Natasha Pulley.

i waited to write a review but it's been days since i finished reading this and i still don't even know how to feel and can't stop CRYING i ... don't even know where to start. i feel so conflicted with this book. it was beautiful. it was engrossing. it was sweeping and lush and deep and full of longing and softness and incredible moments and incredible characters. and yet ... it also hurt me deeply at the very end. but i probably would read it again? what kind of ... ridiculousness ... lmao. this was so beautiful and i KNOW it will stay with me for a long time, so. i just don't know. how to even write a review. i cried when i read the last paragraph. i just don't know.

real rating: 3.5 stars

"Atom by atom he had managed to become more important than Clem or cinchona or anything else, but he was going to live for hundreds of years and I was nothing but another one in a long line of people he would never know well, who died like leaves."

I really do love Natasha Pulleys writing, it is so rich and simply beautiful. This was a wonderfully written tale full of mystery with a wonderful quiet yet lovely main character. I adored Merrick and his quiet strength which we see develop throughout the book.

Tough read, but wonderful all the same. Floating white wood and pollen that lights the way. Stone people and quinine bark.