<b>Enjoyed the book from the beginning (almost) until the end</b> This book is a journey. A good one! And it is solid. Nothing incredibly special, but so (!) well done. The story was consistent, credible and so trivial and routine, that I wasn't really flashed by it - but then I decided that I don't need to always be overwhelmed by story to mark it as a <i>good story</i>; that a good story doesn't have to be super exciting with extra-ordinary characters. Sometimes it's enough if the characters are as ordinary as a baker and farmer/artist living their everyday life when they are well-written, deep, consistent and human in their thoughts, feelings and actions. And that was the case in that book and it was a pleasure to read such a well-crafted work! In the middle of my reading, I settled on a 5-star-rating because of the good over-all feeling of the book, but then the book came towards its end and my rating wobbled. I didn't really like the abrupt change of Roderick's father's attitude towards him and the (pointless?) appearance of Roderick's ex. The former might be due to the farther's health condition, but appeared to have been installed solely for the holistic happy ending. The latter I still can't place because it did nothing for the story, except for Kieran to shift into protector mode which was unnecessary. I would have loved for Roderick to step up a little more for himself here if his ex has to make an appearance. Big pluses: The priest! Such a great character and such an amazing display of what church and religion can be if the right people represent those institutions! The dialogues! After having read several books with poor dialogues and mostly narrated personal descriptions, Roderick's and Kieran's personalities were incredibly well expressed and underlined through their parts of speech. As it should be. Kieran's reaction to homophobic slur! I witness a heated discussion in social media the other day about a (German) book in which a gay MC was insulted as a "fat fa**ot". Instead of standing up for himself (and all queer people) he accepts the words because, he says, yes, he is overweight and gay. The criticism on this scene was, that it is far from okay to display homophobic slurs as "okay", even in fiction. It should have been condemned and discussed at some point in the book. And when Kieran gets insulted he does exactly that - he condemns that comment verbally, but more so by his actions which - since he is not a big talker - is so inside his character. All in all: read it! It's a good one!