I'm glad I finally read this book but only because it's the sort of thing I feel I ought to have read when I was actually in the target age group. There are far more things about it that I had a problem with than there were that I liked.

There was no development. Harriet is the same brat at the end that she was in the beginning, only she's learned the wonderful lesson "You have to lie." Fantastic message! I mean, I'm all for little white lies. But isn't "You have to have tact" a better way to phrase that? That's really what Harriet needs to learn. One of the most frustrating scenes for me is when she's taken to the psychologist and, in her head, makes some very astute observations about how the doctor's Monopoly performance is affected by the way he's writing in his notebook and not paying attention. A supposedly intelligent girl like Harriet ought to make the connection to how her own notebook obsession affects her entire life but she doesn't. She just gets annoyed with him and learns nothing.

Another major problem for me was ... there was not a single character in the whole book that I could identify with and I flat-out disliked most of them, including (maybe especially) Harriet. I realize that I'm 15+ years older than the main group, but this wasn't a case of simply not identifying with them now; I genuinely can't remember ever thinking/feeling/doing anything that Harriet and her peers do. There weren't even any characters that I could look at and think "I knew someone just like that when I was in school." They're all tedious, petty little brats, and I didn't get a sense of anything close to a real friendship between any of them.

And the adults are just... Well, they're even worse than the kids. They remind me of the Drapers and their various acquaintances on Mad Men, which I suppose makes sense, since the book was written around the time that Mad Men takes place. But this is supposed to be children's literature, not heavy social commentary... Even Ole Golly, who I think is supposed to be the wise and understanding grown-up, wraps the book up with poorly-worded advice in a letter that's so harsh I would have cried if I'd gotten it. Harriet thinks it's wonderful, though, which makes me terribly sad for her. How misunderstood and neglected do you have to be to take pleasure from receiving a letter from someone, saying "I don't miss you"? Jeez.