"You may ask yourself: How did I get here?": Richard Powers - The Echo Maker

I haven't quite made up my mind about this one - an appropriate turn of phrase given its subject matter, namely the nature of consciousness and identity. I expected to get a lot out of it, was put offside by its first few chapters, gradually began to trust it a bit more as it progressed, and ended up feeling something more akin to a distanced admiration than any real liking for it by its end. It's a very clever book, and its themes of course interest me, but it lacks a certain lightness of touch or something, I'm not sure. It's a bit too cerebral (hah), perhaps, and not human enough, something which I suspect is one part a Powers thing and one part down to what The Echo Maker is about.