if i were being technical, i would probably rate this a 4.5 or 4.75 because i think that it's slightly too long and some of the tricks muir pulls don't quite work but i do have a rule where if a book makes me actually cry i have to give it 5 stars because i'm bad at processing emotions. this doesn't mean that everything that i've given 5 stars has made me cry, but it does mean that i had to stop reading 40 pages from the end because i didn't want to cry on a commuter train from toronto. instead of typing out a proper review which i would not be capable of doing without sounding like i have every disease. please accept these excerpts from my 32 pages of tiny notebook rambles: