This is one of those "chronicling a family" books, luckily mainly focused on the younger generation. I generally don't like books that span generations and different time periods, so this book was a bit out of my comfort zone. Overall I did like the book more than I expected of a book of this type. The way the time periods and type of writing (prose, poems, letters etc) kept switching broke my immersion in the story a lot thought. The book ends on mainly prose (and a few letters), which means the ending kept my attention better than the start.
Many of the characters just send to drift through life. This is realistic but doesn't make for a great story. A lot of the book, especially

the deaths

seem pointless. I get that it's a stort of "slice of life" book, but it feels very manipulative of the writer to include

the death of Digby

as a sort of climax. While I do appreciate the way the book gets into daily life, it's still a fiction book, which means that nothing happens without the writer wanting it to happen. I really don't know what the writer wanted me to take away from this book. I don't think I'll be taking away anything other than this book (and/or life) being rather pointless. It's fairly well written and the younger generation of characters are likeable, but even after reading all those pages I still don't know any reason to read this book.