This book is very hard to rate. At one point I was determined to put this book aside, not to finish it. I think the book got ruined for me because I have seen the movie adaptation first. One of the elements that kept the movie exciting was the question who had killed Merrin. However, in the book this was revealed quite early one. After that I was not really sure what I was reading this book for. In general, I found the book quite boring at times. There are a lot of flashbacks of which some seemed unnecessary to me. Another thing that was bothering me was the language. Normally sexually explicit language does not really bother me. But this book could have done without the many descriptions of people thinking what they would like to do to other people, and descriptions of how tight clothing are,etc. 
 Overall this book receives a 2.5 star rating. Even though I was 'this' close to putting it down, it did have some humorous, intriguing or emotional parts. And in the last part the pace really picked up. Plus, it was not the author's or the book's fault that the movie kind of spoiled it for me.