This novel is harmless fun; good airline or beach read. I read some of the other reviews where people were comparing this work to Jay McInerney or other authors and blah blah blah...This novel stands on its own as a funny, smart book. There are not a whole lot of lessons, and Tom Reasons, the protagonist, even says at the end, "Don't ask me to add everything up. It's too early in the morning, and I've never been any good at spotting the moral." This book is about gambling, darts, 80s and 90s music, single life in NYC, and, what I think a lot of the other reviewers missed, a novel about friendship. He treats his friends like a jerk, and, like true friends, they are still there to bail him out. Just read it for the fun of it.