** spoiler alert ** I had a really, really hard time rating this one.

If I were ranking this back in grade school when my friends and I were passing around one ratty paperback between the five of us and hiding it from our parents and sneaking it into school to read before the bell, I'd have given it ten stars. I remember it being compulsively readable; twenty-five years later I can still rattle off the four main characters' names (CathyChrisCoryCarrie), the opening lines, and entire paragraphs of text from memory. This book, for good or ill, was my generation's Harry Potter, and we loved it.

As an adult, however, I can see that the writing is somewhat simplistic and very melodramatic; moreover,the subject matter -- incest, physical and emotional abuse, child-murder (at the hands of their mother, no less) -- is apalling. No wonder my mother banned it.

Ultimately, though? I'm none the worse for having read it. Quite the contrary; it gave me hours of enjoyment, provided a harmless secret to share with my friends, fired my imagination, and remains an example of how to tell one hell of a readable story.

So I'm giving it five stars from my twelve year-old self, and three from my adult self, averaging it out to four. (And as a bonus? This split-personality rating fits in perfectly with later volumes of the series.)