4 3 2 1

Really conflicted about this book. I think it started off well and I could get on board with the premise, but ultimately it felt over-stuffed. It was way too long, I think that the author tried to do far too much and the second half just trailed off. I don't have a problem at all with long books, but this didn't really managed to sustain the storyline and it got a bit confusing. Due to the focus being on the first half of the protagonist's (plural) lives, and having to avoid making the book even longer, Archie ended up a quite insufferable child prodigy at times, and world events and cultural references ended up as large lists of books that he read, women he slept with or things that happened. I would've given it four stars but I HATED the ending, it was just too smugly clever for it's own good (much like the protagonist I suppose).