I have a lot of complicated feelings about Jelly.

On one hand: I think Rees did a beautiful job developing the conditions for this post-apocalyptic jellyfish ride. Sure, I had to suspend my disbelief more than I usually prefer to and that often rankled with the obvious real-world callbacks, but it worked. Kind of. It was entertaining, at least: plastic bag wallpaper, a bottle cap rugby ball, math lessons written in fish guts! Climate change and the world ending! Count me in for that ride (clearly, as I finished the book). The dialogue was magnificent, particularly in developing each of the vaguely described protagonists. It was truly the only way to meet these trapped people, as they didn’t do a whole lot of anything for a very, very large portion of the book.

They whined. So much. For good reason, don’t get me wrong, but ye gods.

On the other hand: a compelling mystery and quirky details aren’t enough. If your entire story banks on the most embarrassingly convenient plot twist realization ever… you’ve already lost me. It doesn’t matter how delicious the ending is: I’ve long since checked out. Jelly is already a short book; I really shouldn’t wish during my entire read that it were shorter. Everything was s o. s l o w. And not even in a compelling, fascinating soliloquies and asides, new forays into the human psyche!, kind of way. I was bored.

I’ll give Rees this: she has a brilliant, empathetic mind. She tricked me into caring about Jelly by giving me a mystery I couldn’t give up on and characters I had to enjoy, regardless of how frustrated I was by everything else around it, and she earned two stars just for that. The other star is for not making me read anything else.