This has been on my bookshelf for years and for some reason, I kept putting it aside, or picking it up and beginning it before misplacing it for ages.
Last week, I finally picked it up again and determined to finish it.
Ariel, the main character, is a recently-started PhD student with a focus on literature and 'thought experiments'. However, her supervisor mysteriously disappears, and, on the day the book begins, a building close to Ariel's university building collapses.
On her way home, she stops in a second hand bookshop and cannot believe her eyes when she finds a rare copy of "The End of Mr Y", a book that is said to be cursed. She reads it, and it's about a scientist who meets a travelling magician, who shows him that it is possible to enter a dimension called the Troposphere and inhabit other people's minds.
Ariel, curious about the fiction/reality of the story, finds the recipe for the mixture used to enter this world, but then the trouble begins. Two men, decommissioned from the CIA, find her, desperate to find the recipe so they can sell it on the black market.
In between the high stakes of Ariel's escape from the clutches of these men are discussions of philosophy, exploration into love (which Ariel has never experienced), the freedoms and pitfalls of casual sex, and the ethics of changing History when given the opportunity. As far as entering the Troposphere goes, think "Inception" with the ability to inhabit other minds thrown in.
It's a story full of originality, thought-provoking discussions, humour and heartbreak.
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