He supposedly did a lot of research on just how the hook-up culture on campuses worked. (Don't mean that cynically or suggestively--just that he always worked hard for his source material.)
I read this while in college, and it was, well, horrible. The characters were terrible and unbelievable. Maybe 50 years on it will be something of a good intro to college life in the 2000s, but I disliked it.