Livre d'Or

Yeah, it is pretty much a book about how academic success makes you miserable even though you thought it would make you happy. It does have moments of geeky / academicy joy, it's not that it utterly fails to get that aspect. But it feels as if most of the joy in the book is there so that you feel more of a sense of loss when it turns out to be hollow and meaningless. It's depressing in the way that the worst of litfic can be, though the protag does comment that his misery is generally caused by his own unremittingly negative attitude, not really by his academic studies (or his failed relationships or any of his other problems.) If you hate that kind of thing then the book isn't well written enough to be worth ploughing through, I think.