One of those books I nearly didn't pick up because of the mixed bag of reviews, but goodness me I'm glad I did. So well put together, only feeding us really what we need to know in terms of characters, dialogue and plot, I just loved how real the people felt, and how raw their feelings were felt. Yes, it focuses on mostly third world problems happening (or caused by!) a group of well-to-do pseudo intellectuals and creatives who are all varying levels of self-obsessed, but that is obviously what I relate to - a fact I'll have to reconcile another time because I'm off to read the author's second book now!