To me, it would have been a powerful story if it had been edited down to somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of its volume. In many cases there were so many side stories that had no bearing on the meat of the tale. Was it really important to fully describe the picture on the box of scissors he retrieved to make the woven frame in the field?

As I was reading, I made a note to myself: too many pretty words strung together just for the sake of flowery prose. At times the writing was beautiful but at others it seemed superfluous. I think one of the elements of the writer’s style that bothered me most though, was his tendency to repeat the same words in close proximity to each other. He did this quite a bit and I found it jarring to the eye. I’d wonder if I was accidentally beginning to reread a phrase only to discover that no it was the author who seemed to be stuck in a loop. I understand repetition can be done for effect, but in my opinion he should have occasionally used a thesaurus. Clarity of meaning was often sacrificed in favor of the author's particular style.