This is well-written, but at such a distance that it's difficult to find many of the characters all that sympathetic. The tangential characters are the ones who readers are able to relate to, and the writing and plot just aren't quite enough to be the strength of the book. As such, though a straightforward read, it was a long read for this particular reading, and difficult to finish. By the time I was nearly done, there was one character who I found particularly sympathetic, and the end was somewhat redeeming, but as I wrote, that was very near the end of the book, long after I would have given up on the novel if I weren't one of those folks who finds it nearly impossible to put a book down. In other words, it's well done, and it's a way to pass the time, but it's probably not one I'd recommend to folks who aren't specifically searching out literature related to AIDS or literature that takes its time to examine a group of friends at large instead of a single character. ( )