Wish I could go 3 1/2 on this one! It was an enjoyable read, but didn't really start to grab me until halfway through. What was most valuable for me was a lens on racial identity from an explicitly colonial perspective. Yes, American is a colonial power as well, but one that goes to great lengths pretending otherwise; Britain never hid this identity from itself and thus seems to have racial dynamics with a different cast. The dialogue is great, the characters three-dimensional, but I found the plot frustrating at times.