Really two and a half stars, I suppose. This is one of those "it's (maybe) not you, it's me" books. I'm sure it's all terribly clever, and there were plenty of bits of ideas in there that I liked individually, but the whole didn't hang together for me, and above all, I just didn't care. Picking up the book became a bit of a chore, and the characters (except perhaps Julia) evaporated from my head the moment I put it down.