I’m not quite sure what to say about this book. It’s unrelenting, challenging and distressing. But the feeling of historical veracity makes the experience feel worthwhile. It gives you insight into what happened, why it happened and how it happened, which felt valuable.

I was also aware of trusting the author while following his line of thinking, to be doing it for the right reasons. But by the end I wasn’t so sure.

There were extended passages of bizarre fantasy. And even more bizarre plot twists, where the main protagonist faces death on a number of occasions and miraculously survives. So much so that by the end I was sort of wishing he would just stop.

And speaking of the end, the ending actually had that feeling of novelists who just don’t know how to end their novel and kind of give up.

So would I recommend it? No, it’s not that kind of book. It’s up to individual readers to find a reason to explore these topics.

Do I regret reading it? No, probably not. It made me think hard about things that are important to understand about mankind.

But there was a feeling of relief when it was over and that wasn’t just because of the subject matter.