** spoiler alert ** I wanted to read this book based on all the fabulous reviews, and ended up liking it a lot, if not as much as I had hoped. The South Bend, Indiana setting was well-imagined, though a friend in South Bend laughed when I told her that it was about a boarding school: "A boarding school in SB? Hahaha. ...Around here boarding is a Martian concept." But I found it believable, and really liked the characters. I kind of wished the story had been longer, to spend more time with them and with the setting, but understood why the author kept it going at a good clip.

The one part of the story that I thought didn't quite work was the supernatural element. I understood why it was there, but mentions were too widely-spaced, and I was never really sure how much I was supposed to believe in it--it made me unsure what sort of suspension of disbelief I needed to employ, because the supernatural element seemed so at odds with the blithe midwestern normality of a typical boarding school story. It was like a preppie trying to wear a Carmen Miranda headdress. Cognitive dissonance. But that's a fairly minor quibble.

There was a fair bit of didacticism I could have lived without, too; the life lessons should come organically from the story, not be pointed out so...pointedly.

The ending I liked a lot, though. Most stories like it would leave the main character torn about leaving, but this one wasn't. It was refreshing. She enjoyed her stay, and was happy to go home.