This book is incredibly compelling, and I gobbled it up in a day –reading through my lunch hour and well into my evening.

I read EW’s review calling it a “disappointment,” and I can’t help thinking I read a different book than they did. This book is “good, old-fashioned novel of ideas,” as Hank’s brother once described Fahrenheit 451. It’s about fame, shame, and the internet. The characters aren’t fully developed characters, EW. Of course they’re not. Neither are the kids who visit Narnia or the pigs in Animal Farm.

Plus, Hank has been thinking and talking about these issues for so long that the philosophical underpinnings of the novel have a lot of weight–or at least the power of long thought underneath them. In fact, for a while as I read, I kept exclaiming “This is so Hank!” every few chapters. But then I remembered that the “Hank” I know is just as carefully constructed as the “April May” that April and Andy construct in their hotel room. ‘S all right. I still like him. And I liked April May too, no matter how other reviewers might consider her “unlikeable.”

However, the writing isn’t great. The first chapter basically consists of the narrator saying, “Hi, I’m April. This is what I’m like. This is my friend Andy. This is what he is like.” While it does get better after that [never fear], it never becomes gorgeous prose. Once I got past that first chapter, though, I didn’t actually mind the writing all that much. The story was page-turning-great, exciting without being scary, high stakes without grinding down my heart.

…and I just HAD to know what was going to happen next.

Lucky for me, the ending left me with just a little bit of that feeling. As someone who actually had to wait for the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Harry Potter books to come out, that’s a feeling I kind of like.

Do yourself a favor and read this rollicking romp of a book. It’s worth it just for the wonderful feeling of sinking into a story where you just want to keep going.