I found the movie of this book so depressing that halfway through it I had to turn the light on and flick through the Argos catalogue to stop myself from putting my head in the oven (although my oven's electric so this might have been a futile attempt to escape the film). The book wasn't as grim for me, but took me a while to get into due to the 'style over substance' preference of McCarthty's pen/keyboard. I think I might have to read it again to get the most out of it. Which is more than can be said for the Argos catalogue, I guess.