You are in for an awakenening. Trust me when I tell you this, that there will be parts of Atlas Shrugged that you'd rather skip over because it's long, dry, and you get sick of reading the same descriptive words over, and over, and over.
Resist the temptation to skip part of the book. Resist the temptation to give up.
When you complete Atlas Shrugged, you never look at the world the same way again. I first read it all the way through in 1993. What an eye opener. Many of my personal views and convictions were formed as a result of Rand. My strict adherence to personal responsibility and accountability, my view of "leeches" on society, and my views towards government and "moral obligations" dramatically changed.
I'd love to chat and exchange thoughts once you complete teh book. :)
Let me boil it down for you:
All the good guys have neat names, are beautiful, smart, and enjoy violent sex (which they consider to be a philosophical statement). They have no apparent sense of humor, but do seem to enjoy venomous discussions of money and cigarettes. Everything they do is perfect. They can and do invent calculus at an early age.
The bad guys have awful-sounding names. They are rather shapeless, stupid, greedy, and envious in nature. They are liver-lipped, have ugly, watery eyes, and if they are female they wear things like knee-socks. Sex (if they have it) is apparently based on mutual loathing. Nothing they do ever works, except somehow they have always been able to outsmart the smart people.
To be honest, I used to think it was a great book. I read it about 10 times. Halfway through #11, however, I realized that it is not a great book at all. It's dull. Its characters are charicatures, and not very good ones, at that. Ayn Rand's ideas about sex are simply ludicrous.
For a classic review of the book by Whittaker Chambers, go here. It's about half-way down the page.