I was given this book to read as the summer reading book prior to entering Smith College. I finished it, but I hated it. I felt like it didn't really go anywhere. It bored me. This is the type of literature that I feel a lot of people hold up as classic, good, "quality" literature that just doesn't cut it for me. People look down on graphic novels and juvenile fiction, but the only book I've ever hated more than this is Richard Wright's Native Son, which I actually threw in a trashcan.