This is one of those books that is going to stay with me with for awhile. It wasn't perfect, but any problems I had with it are far outweighed by the delights to be found in its pages. I fell in love with the protagonist's voice. He's an eccentric, brilliant, 12 year old cartographer. He attempts to map the world and his experience of it, especially the baffling complexities of life, loss, loneliness and connection. The illustrations and maps that break out of the text are fantastic. So is a lot of the prose itself. I was drawn into the world and T.S. Spivet's story, especially the parts about his family, his work, and his (mostly) solitary journey from Montana to D.C.

I was immediately captivated by the novel. Strangely, despite the hold it had on me, somewhere in the middle I was able to put it down and not return again for some time. I don't know if it was a shift in the narrative or if I had just reached a saturation point but it lost some momentum and I lost some interest. However, when I picked it up again I felt that sense of enchantment return and I didn't stop reading until I got to the end.

There were pieces in the last section that I didn't care much for because they didn't seem to go anywhere all that interesting. There were elements of the fantastic scattered throughout the rest of the story but I had an easier time reconciling those to the narrator and the moment. The bits about the secret society just didn't work for me. The last part seemed oddly paced but the emotional payout was quite satisfying. I closed the book and felt something familiar: the mixture of pleasure and regret that usually surfaces when I finish reading something special.

Even if everything it attempted didn't quite work, I still give this book five stars because I thought it was original, moving, funny, clever, and ambitious.