I really wanted to enjoy this book and feel like I am bad for not having had a good time at a party without not really knowing why - is it me?

The book is really a series of loosely connected short stories which could probably be shuffled and the outcome would be the same. You have to concentrate hard on the who's who in this book as it is really baffling at times. There are 20 chapters of which I am glad that I read two. As I reached the end I just had to get on and skim read the final 50 pages because it portrays such a nasty and vile set of circumstances that I could not bear to be manipulated and deceived by this author's grotesquely gorgeous prose. I guess it is just me but I know that I am not alone in this