illegible_scribble
8/9/2020
I'm not sure why this book has shown up on lists of the year's SFF; it's not speculative fiction. One of the characters is a speculative fiction author, and a manuscript written by her is the macguffin used to frame this story, which consists of a long series of anecdotes and descriptive passages only very loosely connected by the framing story. A number of well-known SFF authors get name-checked -- but there's no SFF in this story.
If "a long series of anecdotes and descriptive passages" sounds good to you, then this may be your sort of book. If you're looking for science fiction and/or fantasy, you will probably want to look elsewhere.