It’s probably the sort of thing that neither of them was able to adequately process until after the events of the novel. There are plenty of stories where someone does something dickish and the characters are all “Well that was rude, back to surviving the plot” and it doesn’t get addressed unless that’s what the story is about.

That’s a very specific fetish right there.

Honestly, I don’t think he’s supposed to be a great person. He’s an abused and socially isolated teenager pursuing a prize for selfish reasons and only begins to realize how wrong he is near the end of the story. Actually, now that I think about it, I frequently see a story criticized on the basis that the main character is flawed and does the wrong thing sometimes, or hurts someone, as though no protagonist can suck sometimes.

I think it’s good, and it’s helped me with some conflict resolution and getting better at being who I want to be socially, but it’s not a 5 star book except in it’s own category, where I would say it’s one of the best self-help books because it doesn’t advocate anything unethical that I can recall. But I think anyone who rates a self-help book 5 stars with no qualifiers has definitely made that book’s advice their whole personality.