It was a pleasure to read, too. I was so grateful for that, especially since it is well-over 600 pages long. (And this is his first novel! There should be more to come! And still, the author, Ferrari, has other surprises in hand: he is a fine artist who does fantasy art including book covers. He also cites as his writing influences authors that I have already read for this list and loved just as well: John Crowley, T.H. White, even Jasper Fforde.)
The writing lesson I gleaned from this is terrible. As much as I cared for Joby and wanted him to be happy, the parts where he was happy were, well, boring. I think this was intentional: God confides to his angels of his boredom with obedience, and Joby himself experiences some boredom with a safer life. This says a lot about life, but it also says a lot about writing. Do we, as writers, have to taunt our characters to make a story worth reading? Ah! The ramifications of that! It burns my heart.
Visit, visit Mark Ferrari's website. There is Art, Poetry, More!