I read through a large part of it fairly quickly. Then the characters leave the school, and I just couldn't move forward. I struggled through it a few pages at a time.

Like you, I found it fairly derivative, but not subversive enough.

While I initially quickly identified with Quentin, it slowly started becoming apparent that he's one of the most irritating protagonists I've ever had to read. I cannot believe that anyone can make such a series of monumentally moronic decisions. It is like the author decided he needed to create a "sympathetic" character who is not brave, not quick thinking, not kind, etc. etc. but went about it in the stupidest way possible. He simply piled up the stupid.

The peripheral cast might as well be given numbers and one line tags, a la a Perry Mason novel. Not one of them seemed real.