I really enjoyed getting to read this coming of age story. I appreciated the way the protagonist was flawed and didn't always make the right choices. There's a value for teenagers in seeing characters who have to make tough choices and don't always get it right. I only had one small issue with this book which is that some of the side female characters felt like they lacked some depth, and I had trouble with Gil's relationship to the girl from Brooklyn versus the girl he was interested in that he was going to school with. I appreciated all of the things this book managed to fit into the story, overall it was very seamless and was able to provide good commentary on all of it, but I did have trouble following some of the side characters, they weren't necessarily mentioned by name enough that I could strongly associate something with them. This was especially true of his friends and classmates at his new school.