I personally find that this book is a reasonable read - but the dialogue is clumsy, and the timescale is awfully warped. The characters are irritating, and I'm sure that everyone has heard about how cliched it is...the criticisms go on and on. It's an engaging (ish) read, but it is awfully written and I doubt it will ever become a classic - let's face it, can you imagine reading Eragon for your GCSEs rather than Tess of the D'urbervilles?