Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Its supposedly grand themes: absent fathers, making your way for yourself, gritty conflict (at personal and international levels), political ideology gone mad.True the book has these elements.I'm not sure I'd really call them themes since they pop in and out here and there as is convenient.They don't particularly parallel or reinforce each other into any particularly profound or coherent whole.They're just scattered about and the publisher's description wants us to think they're more meaningful than they are.
On the plus side the writing is often lively and with interesting details.The reading is detailed and somewhat addictive.The author succeeds in defining a mood for the boarding school, creating tension and making us want to find out what is going on.
I agree with other reviewers that the author is trying to portray a dark, supposedly "realistic" side to things that is supposed to be more profound than it actually is.This isn't Catcher in the Rye or Lord of the Flies, though.The power struggles, the bungled sexual desires and conquests make me think it should've been headier than it actually turns out to be.
It's very detail-rich, which is good at times, but less good at other times.Details to give realism are nice, but the author sometimes gives names and large paragraphs to characters that are relatively to completely unimportant (and are never seen again in any meaningful ways).There are too many characters introduced within the first 100 pages with few cues about which will later turn out to be important and which unimportant.
The book is a nice effort. I wanted to find out what happened and continued reading.The book was enjoyable, though perhaps needed some tightening and finesse.
Oh, by the way, if you go in expecting a dark comedy you'll be disappointed.It's not so much comedic as dark.
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