What a strange book. It builds like a romance without the usual racy moments, but dripping with misogyny. A paternalistic, arrogant, self-serving man continually puts down a sensitive, clever woman whose only fault (aside from perfectionism) is youth. And somehow this is supposed to come across as love. The attempts at clever twists of logic between the two main characters fell flat for me; they just seemed pretentious and overwrought. The overall idea behind the book has some merit but I didn't need a story about women's "sentimentality" and  "necessary" deference to older, wiser men who choose to be cryptic and academic when they could just be direct and realistic.