I didn't expect this book to be as gripping as it is. However, more surprisingly, it was extremely meaningful in a way that I would be hard pressed to express. I feel like in a lot of my reviews, I struggle to express what I really liked about a book, and that's certainly the case here. Pynchon paints a beautiful and somewhat hallucinogenic picture of California in the sixties (complete with the UC Berkeley campus!), and while his prose isn't a complete joy, it is very readable. It was refreshing to read such a conversational book, after my previous fictional reads, and that was partly why I enjoyed it so much. However, more than anything, the main conspiracy-laden plot is very well done. Regardless of the conclusion, which I happened to love, the journey is one that is very worth taking, and the style adds to its mystery. I finished this book in less than twelve hours, and basically couldn't stop reading except to sleep. It's been a while since a book has done that for me, and even though I didn't think it was a masterpiece, it was certainly a fun ride, and the lessons it contains are worth contemplating.