This book came highly recommended to me and it's high praise made me anxious to read it. It began quite well. With strong characters of all colors, shapes and sizes and a protagonist of whom you were excited to follow in his endeavors. Every point of view brought on a new details which filled in the blanks of the other characters narratives. With schoolboy fun, high stakes and a dash of mystery, the book was off to an incredibly amazing start. But almost halfway through it went from being an intriguing intellectual novel to a bad soap opera. One event after another occurred, each more cliched then the last. The novel became boring, cliched and predictable. The further I read on the cheaper the plot twists and characters became. I would NOT recommend this book. It is a good read if you have access to nothing else. But, this book is a lame, predictable story wrapped in delinquent writing and famous name.