Trapped in a giant metaphor ...

... Review: ‘The Flame Alphabet’ leaves reader cold - The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Ed Champion.)

For me, “The Flame Alphabet” triggered the very allergic reaction to verbiage that it describes. A relentless sameness to the drear, queasy atmosphere is stifling: Page after page, characters sicken in an unremitting assault of pus, pallor and hair loss. The imagery is monochrome: muddy and brown and cold. The nausea is contagious. The worms in my compost were positively perky in comparison to this enervating prose.