The most powerful idea conveyed through the contrasting aesthetics of the novel is that of the dynamic nature of social life in an era of struggle. The very ‘cramped’ and regulated manner by which we are introduced to Rosa’s world is periodically overthrown by rich artistic convulsions that spill across the page and sometimes between them, symbolic renderings of epic events, war and revolution. These shifts in style feel spontaneous, even ecstatic, and they convey the ingenious, unexpected nature of these moments when the masses are making history and not simply being made by it. Red Wedge Magazine