Not quite as good as his other books I've read, but very entertaining still. The major flaw is that the characters don't feel real, they're a bit too flaky to believe in. For example, Stephen's behavior is so weird that it actively disables your emotional investment in the book at that point. I also didn't like the whole faith healing part of the book, it just reinforces the feeling that we're not dealing with the real world here, which has been the major thing Hornby has done so well in previous books.