content: After finally finishing this book, I am very surprised that it won a prize. The first several hundred pages have the main character (Nick Guest) doing little more than having sex, fantasizing about having sex with every other male character (major or minor), or wondering if anyone else can guess that he's fantasizing about sex.Perhaps it would be a better read for someone British, because I found it hard to appreciate the depiction of life in the British aristocracy. The character development felt very heavy-handed and repetitive, as one scene after another depicted Nick feeling embarrassed or trying to figure out how to handle a social situation.The end of the book was much more rewarding, as the web of characters unravelled and their pretensions were stripped away. I also enjoyed some clever Henry James references. Still, I don't think the investment it takes to slog through the beginning is worth it overall.