The first half of the book is definitely slow and very science heavy. I agree with the other reviews that you can practically conduct a kidney transplant after reading this book. The second half definitely makes up for the slow and dry bits though. I can definitely tell that the author is very intelligent and knows his stuff in regards to science. Overall I really enjoyed it after I got to the second half of the book. I remember my dad playing the video game when I was a kid and now that I'm older I wanted to read the book, and I'm glad I did!