I liked this review at the LRB,
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n06/turn03_.html
"Then afterwards I found myself feeling wretched, in a way I really haven’t for years and years and years. Why can’t I be freed of the need for food and sleep, why can’t I squirm exquisitely in skinny trousers, why can’t I be for ever beautiful and young? Awful memories were dislodged, of being young and full of longing – a really horrible feeling, a sickening excess of emotion with nowhere, quite, to put it."

Will's characterization is accurate I think..

A librarian at school gave the book to our 11-year-old boy. I read what he reads, but could not make any progress with it. Eventually he put it down and said 'Dad, I think this is a really bad book'.

It's a good thing you don't get it- Its a chick thing. The books are far better. We love the idea of someone being completely devoted to us n not being able to survive without us.

So my wife rented this movie and I sat through it. She thought it was "a really sexy" movie and got her all worked up.