This was not Hemingway's best book by any stretch of the imagination. I am somewhat of a Hemingway fan, and this book was clearly not planned out at all before he started writing it. You will spend multiple chapters at a location or on a boat before it has even been described, you will have characters and their stories brought into the book for no apparent reason, and the ending doesn't tie much together at all.

I wouldn't suggest anyone start their Hemingway reading with this novel. It is a novel that can be finished and you can pick out interesting viewpoints or intriguing quotes throughout the book, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.