Actual rating is 3.5.

I admit I didn't embark on reading this book in complete good faith. I caught myself sneering at the outset but regardless, I always enjoy a depraved, despairing protagonist embroiled in unattainable love, which is what this book is partly about. It mostly deals with the topic of impropriety from faculty, and what reads like a half-hearted and too-easy investigation into the matter. Which is fine. I didn't think it was going to reach thriller-levels of investigation. I don't think that's what the book is deeply about, anyway.

This book is an introspection on one's school days, the nostalgia, the idealization that comes with looking back? The connection to the ideals the school offered to its students? Divergence of values? The universal and ageless desperation for love? Thwarted desire? I think so.

I can't help but wonder how different School Days would have been if [a:Edmund White|15975|Edmund White|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1386885403p2/15975.jpg] wrote it. It would have been longer and more graphic, that's for sure.