Sea sick: Abandoning ship on The Starboard Sea

I'm guessing Amber Dermott's debut novel The Starboard Sea was not meant for readers like me, or of my cohort. I admire a # of things about the book, in particular Dermott's clear and at times elegant writing, and as noted in yesterday's post after a shaky start she begins to build the narrator, Jason Prosper, into a character with some depth and complexity - his confusing (to him) bisexual drive, his yearning for a connection to his parents and to his older brother, his guilt about the death of his best friend, his ambivalence about competition - but eventually I just got overwhelmed by the juvenile behavior of everyone around Prosper, his classmates in the boarding school, and though I hope and expect that by the end of the novel Prosper will do something about all of his dilemmas and about the cruelty and crudity of the world in which he lives, I just can't hang on long enough to get there. For example, Dermott makes a point showing the how the schoolmates at Bellingham belittle the "townie" who works in the dining hall; Prosper just observes, but later he befriends the kid a little bit and learns his name (Leo - everyone else calls him Plague). But when he sees the kid in the company of his friends, he's unable or unwilling to reach out to him. This will have to change - but how long can a reader wait? The first half of the novel - that's 150+ pages, is all set-up - establishing Prosper's condition and conflicts, but he does very little, he's largely an observer of a nasty scene - and sometimes a participant. It is unclear to me what Dermott's stance toward her narrator is: for ex., after a hurricane (in which he stupidly goes out for a long drive with his brother - OK if they want to put themselves at risk, but they needlessly put public-safety officials at risk as well, as every New Englander is well aware) - the boys break into the athletic complex and play a long game of tackle football (2 per side? Is that even possible?) using historic equipment that they lift from shattered trophy cases. This is just one example among many showing the kids as completely irresponsible, oblivious of anyone else's property - Dad's money can take care of any damages, of course - in other words, nasty, spoiled brats. Prosper holds himself a little at a distance - though he does play in the football game - but what exactly is the point? Will he change? Will he change others? Will he leave? In other words: Is he a contemporary Holden Caulfield? or (Sillitoe's) Long-Distance Runner? Huck Finn? Or is this just a comic romp in which everyone misbehaves and the guy gets the right girl, in the end? (cf Farrelly's Outside Providence)? I'm not sure and probably won't find out, but am fearing that Dermott wants it both ways: comedy at the expense of others, salvation on the cheap.