Reader's Discretion Advised

Hm...it's good, I guess. The ideas Moon tackles are ambitious and rather well-portrayed. My problem with it as a story, though, is that the characters seemed too self-aware. I think Moon was trying for more of a novel-type story, but at the very heart of it, it is still romance, so that should have been taken into consideration. The omniscient narrator thing isn't all that obvious, so there seem to be obtrusive jumps to omniscience odd moments.The "curse of beauty" thing...the way it was presented seemed trite...the fact that it was followed closely with the sterilization comment...It's the Mary-Sue thing again. The wangsty "Oh, poor me (but I'm still perfect)" thing. It seemed really inconsistent with the "why can't I NOT be obedient?" thing Moon had been working before. It's already been 1/5 through the book and already we are presented with several contradicting characterizations of Paul.And Danny. Oh, poor Danny with his drunken father and his love of books. But heavens forbid anyone find out because then they'd expect things of him. And that would be a fate "worse than death." I don't know...I want to call BS. And then he has the gall to say "Oh, I don't have the right to call Paul broken; of the two of us, he's definitely the more stable and together" and something about how he's "more stable and together than Danny could ever hope to be."--The Devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility.I started skimming at a little under 1/4 of the way through, which is a definite indication of the quality of the writing...The entire thing seemed oddly incongruous, like the different elements just didn't match up. There were several parts where it just read more like means-to-an-end...that is, there didn't seem to be any logical development for that certain point. It just seemed to...happen. Spontaneously and without really good reason (there may have been one, but it was a pathetic excuse of development...) There were some decent parts, but overall, it just seemed so contrived...I'll give it a second star because I did manage to skim my way through about to half-way before I really couldn't stand all the wangst anymore.