Holy shit I don't know how this almost passed me by. I had heard of James just vaguely as some novel that was getting a lot of hype as the best book of the year. It won the Pulitzer in 2025 for fiction which does not always align with my taste. However this time it really did. The conceit is amazing and executed really well. I don't want to say anymore really as I didn't know what it was going to be about before reading it. Somehow that also went over my head or I didn't pay attention and discovering it while reading it blew me away.