This book had a lot of things going for it. It is a coming-of-age story (among other things), which I tend to have a soft spot for. It references literature and films with which I am familiar; sure, it gets rather pretentious, but it's the type of pretension I have no problem getting behind. It is fairly humorous - not laugh-out-loud funny, but dry and amusing in a way I enjoy. And the middle of the book was quite a page-turner. 
 Unfortunately, there were a number of problems with the novel as well. The sheer volume of metaphors quickly became tiresome. The dialogue is noticeably unnatural. The "fascinating" Hannah is actually pretty boring. And pretty much everything after Hannah's death is a letdown. 
 I'm not going to say it's not worth reading, because I did enjoy it. It just had the potential to be a lot more than it was, and that was frustrating.