Mairsey, I know you've already read HOL but I thought I'd get the thread rolling. I read this not long after reading 'Everything is Illuminated' and much of what I loved and what I found infuriating about that book is the same here. Lots of reviewers were rapturous over her prose style, which grated on me at times (And yet what, already!?) But I think it takes a real brass neck to write excerpts of the book within the book, that is supposed to be so brilliant and life-changing to the characters, and I think she pretty much pulls it off.
Clever language also can be a barrier to sympathising with characters, but I didn't find that the case here. When Gursky's neighbour (forgotten the name) suddenly proves to be long-dead it was a true pit-of-the-stomach moment. She draws all the peripheral characters astutely too-- I have just finished a long book which revolves around three characters almost to the exclusion of any other and thinking back to this reminds me of the pleasure of reading about a richly peopled world.
The book sets out from such a heart-breaking point, and descends from there, that I found ending's redemptive quality quite miraculous.