I was eager to read the book after watching the film on BBC2 (England). I expected the novel to be more descriptive, imaginative and more three dimensional than the film but found it to be quite sketchy and without fluidity. It jumped from past to present and from scene to scene quite disjointedly and I found it difficult to continue reading for I felt like I'd read the same paragraph over and over. As a result of this the only characters which seemed to convey themselves as three dimensional were that of Rick and Sheryls'. There didn't seem to be any revelation at the end of the story, I guess with having knowledge of that era that it would be quite obvious in the way things ended, with broken teenage love and little thought for the result of that. Quite disappointing overall, though worth watching the film.