I have finally finished The Children’s Book. It held my attention all the way through, but yeesh… both the family relationships and the history were ridiculously complicated. It was kind of like a Maeve Binchy book on steroids.
As for the ending… well, of the 6000 characters, about 3000 (those who were most in love, it seemed) managed to live. The others threw themselves into the sea, spontaneously keeled over, or were trampled into the mud of a battlefield.
That was not a spoiler. There’s no way you’ll figure out which 3000 are which until the final pages.