I'd say no, although I read it about 10 times when I was 14... Now I read it a lot less frequently. Brilliant book though, certainly not strictly for the teens.

I would agree; its brilliance goes along with its genre, of growing-up books about the protagonist's education, formal and otherwise. It made a writer out of not a few fans.

Yes, it's in the genre John references, along with, say, Laurie Lee's "Cider With Rosie".

Personally, I hated the thing when i read it high school. Hated hated hated it! Although now I do recognize it as a generally great book, I still wouldn't care to read it again.

Contrary to popular belief, to my knowledge, a lot of teens don't care for the book either; but of course there are still a lot who do. Generally the class opinion is split down the middle.

Dunno about class (socio-economic? school?), but it's very well handled, at minimum, and is a lot easier to get thro than its apparent half-model, Dickens..

My brother bought it for me last Xmas, but I still haven't read it yet. And now that's school's started again, I won't be doing any leisurely reading until next summer or maybe Xmas break. Either way, I won't get around to reading it for a couple months.

Love this book. First read it when I was 14, felt like such a BAMF!