Sometimes I like to dive into a book without any foreknowledge of plot or context. Unfortunately, I began this book the same way and was lost and disinterested for the first 150 pages. I eventually figured out the writing is meant to emulate the speech and style of 18th century colonial America. This was a relief because I didn't understand why I was having so much trouble comprehending the language at first. The story of Octavian is gutsy in it's style and delivery though perhaps too gutsy. It's difficult to really feel Octavian's struggles because he acts so distantly un-human too often. We learn the secret of his plight almost as he learns it, which causes us both to be confused. I literally thought Octavian's caretakers at the beginning were robots and I was reading some sort of steampunk novel. The novel finds a better voice near the middle through to the end, but then the ending is vague. Perhaps this story is the setup for the next? Still, I don't have the interest or energy to find out.

Octavian’s life might be astonishing, but his story is not. Anderson tells us that Octavian has an astonishing life, but he doesn’t show us. Octavian himself doesn’t even know his life is any different than other people’s, other boys’, other blacks. Even when he figures it out – when he finds out that he’s actually a slave and not the beloved prince of a household, and suddenly made to act accordingly – nothing really changes in his demeanor, he seems quite unastonished actually. There is a barrier between us and what might be good about this novel. There could be something astonishing here, but it’s hidden under other people’s letters driving the plot instead of the main character’s actions, in breakneck plot changes that don’t seem to bother the characters too much, and behind mysterious forbidden doors that, once opened, just result in a dry lecture by a man who changed his name to a number for very little reason and later changed it back just the same. When you have to call your story “astonishing” in the title, it’s very likely not to be so.

Intriguing. Doesn't offer a concrete story line and I enjoyed the mystery, similar to life.

A challenging read from the brilliant M.T. Anderson.