I wanted to like this book better -- it is written with pleasant clarity and the author has done a lot of research. The premise is also intriguing.

However, the book never really gets off the ground in terms of tension. I didn't feel any interest in the developing relationship between the leads, the protagonist's quest to make something of himself felt unimportant, and there were a lot of side plots for such a short book. I never felt like I got to know the characters properly. The end didn't resolve anything; it felt like it ended half way through?

There was also a strange fixation on how noticeably aristocratic the protagonist was, and how it made him 'better': the plot tried to correct that with a democratic message, but it didn't take away from the constant insistence that he was different and better than the people around him because of his background.