I had read somewhere that this book is like The Beach by Alex Garland and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. It's not. Richard Mason is either trying to write in a pseudo-gothic style for atmosphere, or he is simply writing the way he thinks that a grown-up should. The result is a poe-faced, archaic story with dreadful dialogue. The story is good, though and there are some nice literary devices, but he should have sat on it a while instead of letting the publishers hype him as a child genius.