I finished the book and I really enjoyed it up until the ending. I think it was a poor way to tie things together. When the hurricane came up, I was fairly sure that Eben would die, and then here comes Jennie out of nowhere again, and she “dies” and he lives. The newspaper article at the end is strange too because if she is not real, or a ghost, then how does one explain the article Gus shows Eben? I am still kind of confused by who exactly Jennie is and I think the book should have cleared that up better at the end. I don’t know what to think. Maybe Jennie is only in his mind. Maybe Eben even imagined her meeting Gus and his landlord. That would certainly help explain things, but that is only a speculation. If she is seen by other people then it is hard to understand her rapid growth in such a short time.
I also was expecting more comments from the present time like the book starts with. Eben also reverts back to present time on a few occasions when he mentions that his portrait of Jennie ends up in the museum, and I thought that at the end he would go back to the present time. The book kind of abruptly ends.