I saw the low review score for this book halfway through reading this book and was a bit disappointed in Buckley's readership. His poignant commentary is always timeless and apropos. The same was the case with this book but it never seemed to go anywhere. Some things were resolved others were left hanging in the air (though I didn't care anyway). The characters knew what they were doing but there wasn't a real conflict to speak of (or at least one that I could really care about). And the conflict was resolved or didn't matter anyway because it felt like we were left in the same place that we started.

The usual fodder in Buckley's novels leave you with a protagonist that you could root for and here I just found that Bird was a run of the mill guy that I could care less about.

But the writing is still fantastic and more than a pleasure to read and it has enough tongue in cheek writer quips to roll around in for a while.