Rescued by the Ending

The worst thing about Amor Towles’ otherwise insufferable The Lincoln Highway is that the last two pages are excellent. You have to wade through 600 pages of sickly sweet molasses to reach an ending that is very dark and offers an instant relief from the hyperglycemic attack that is the rest of the novel. I’m glad that I held out until the very end and didn’t quit halfway because the ending kind of almost made the novel not completely maddening. I’m never reading a word by this author again, though. I can’t stand his style of writing. It’s like the tone that parents use with very small children. It stops being cute around the time the kid learns to ride a bike.