The great writing is what kept me going, even through the predictible parts. (Lee loves something, then hates it. She loves something, then hates it). We follow an introverted, emotional girl through all four years of high school boarding school. Sittenfield makes loneliness and awkwardness very real through her writing. The book really comes alive at times, like during the precious scenes between Lee and Sugarman, Lee's first love. Lee's feelings about her precarious romance were so real and heartbreaking, it made me weep. I knew they couldn't stay together, but I thought it got unnecessarily harsh and ugly at the end. The protagonist, Lee, drags the romance through the muck and ruins everything nice about it. The future Lee, who is narrating, doesn't even come to realize by the end that Sugarman had loved her. It's just very cynical and depressing.