I picked this up for somewhat odd reasons: the track with the same name by one of my favourite rockbands, Traffic, is excellent and I was attracted by the lenticular gimmick on the front cover. I do own a soundtrack of the film with the same name too, from 1968, which is mostly well worth hearing, but I never saw the film, so I had no idea what kind of story it would be..
Starting with this without any expectations, this was a better read than I imagined. Main character Jamie ploughs his laborious way through dates and other assorted encounters with the female population in a hilarious fashion - and gets nowhere at all, poor lad. Having grown up in around the same timeframe (although in a very different country), I was easily able to recognize the bulk of the awkwardness and the fantasies. The discrepancies between the young man's thoughts and impulses on one hand and what actually happens on the other are funny enough to make the book very readable. It serves also fine as a remembrance for incrowd language that was in vogue in 1965 and which we have mostly forgotten by now.
The book somewhat peters out at the end, but Jamie is a character that rings true and so do his horribly petty dames. Nice. ( )