The Whole of the Mood had a great premise that unfortunately didn’t hit the mark. The writing didn’t grip me. I didn’t love the characters enough to keep me interested. I liked the concept of this book but the execution wasn’t there for me.

2.5

I... didn't love this. I found the beginning quite slow and somewhat boring and almost DNF'd it. The only reason I finished it was because 1) I got an arc of it and wanted to follow through on my promise to review it and 2) I wanted to know what happened to Gabriel/what he did. And boy was I disappointed. I don't know why, but I expected the Incident to be MUCH bigger than what happened. I felt very underwhelmed with it all. And then the book ends. It felt very "....oh. Okay?" I will say that the highlights were Michael in his village and Pumba. That's it though.

I'm not sure if it wasn't explained or if I just missed it/forgot it, but the title seems very... different to what the book is about. And the cover. It's BEAUTIFUL, truly, but with only one reference to Icarus in the early part of the novel... it felt like it didn't match.