After reading all the wonderful recommendations for this book, I decided to give it a try. What a dissapointment! Granted, perhaps at the time this book was written, the idea was rather original but the author was so long-winded that it made it a frustrating read. The reader has to get to halfway through the book before the plot finally got interesting, but by that time, I found most of the characters so irritating that I skipped several pages at a time to get to the end of it!I would recommend you check this out from your local library before spending precious $$ on this book.