This is a story about a boy. The boy witnesses one of his parents killing the other. This launches a narrative that takes us through the aftermath.

This Census-Taker is a weird book. There are some hints that the story is set in post-apocalyptic future, but it might just as well happen in early 1900s - I'm not exactly sure what tipped me towards that era, but that feeling stuck.

It moves between first, second and third person story-telling, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, and seemingly without any function or structure. Some people suggest this is to convey how the memories of the protagonist are in disarray. For me, it just adds some mild annoyance.

I'm fine with leaving things in the dark, being open-ended, (somewhat) non-linear story-telling. I just don't find any true content in this book. Miéville uses lots of pages to tell us nothing.

According to the census-taker, you keep three books, and one of them you need to write because it costs too much to not write it. It may well be that Miéville needed to write this book. I just don't see any reason to read (or recommend) it.