This novel presents a meticulously detailed atmosphere, coupled with the pace of everyday life, which eases the reader into the rhythm and reality of urban existence. 

We meet harsh strangers, are jostled on the teeming subways, and encounter people dragging the dross and drudgery of their day-to-day lives into their present circumstances.

The elegant writing style possesses persuasive readability, and offers the local flavor of English ambiance throughout the richly detailed setting. We are transported through varied, troubled perspectives, with a relatable cast of characters, who are looking for a way out of the grind and making choices to enhance or complicate their destinies.

Blending internal monologue with the narrative flow, the novel explores office politics, workaday relations, confrontations and quiet reflections. We are left to ponder how moments add up to a life, and how human nature leads us to become consumed by the task of drawing out the meaning from these bygone memories, all the while suffusing us with the melancholy of the task.

The realistic characters enact personal hardships, untangling the plots of interwoven lives, burdened or enlivened by the receding and flowing nature of love. It made me dwell on the question every person must face at some point: that is, How are we supposed to get through the days, weighted by our daily illusions, both grand and minuscule, except through inner classifications and justification? The devils on either shoulder are there to guide us.

The author presents an analysis of small details surrounding life-changing events, artfully constructing a vivid modern reality, infused with flaws, doubts, and agitated lives. By examining our definitions of self, our identification with others and our daily struggles, we can comprehend and ultimately reconcile the dichotomies within us. Death imposes a foreboding aspect on our self-contained existences. Faith, guilt, generation gaps, and the secret lives within us don’t always jive with our public personas, along with the violence, cruelty, freedom, desolation, despair, and hope society breeds.