Overall, what do you think of The Winter Soldier? (no spoilers in this thread please)

It was not easy to get into at the beginning and I am not a reader who needs constant exciting plot developments . Possibly it was the graphic descriptions of the medical procedures that threw me off...certainly I hated the overlong section dealing with the lice infestation. Maybe I just wasn't grabbed by these characters.
Whatever the main cause, I found myself feeling that I had to keep reading instead of not wanting to ever stop.