The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi

Scholastic has just re-released this with a new cover and a cheap price, and sent me a reviewer's copy to read...

Charlotte Doyle is looking forward to her trip across the Atlantic aboard the Seahawk.  But when the families with whom she is supposed to be traveling fail to appear, and members of the crew attempt to discourage her from showing up, she regrets the decision.  But already out at sea, it is too late!

Between storms, stowaways, and seasickness, Charlotte has a lot with which to deal.  However, it gets worse: the crew is mutinous and the captain is unhinged and cruel.  Before long, young innocent Charlotte finds herself thrust into the middle of plots and counterplots, and ends up accused of murder!

It's a vivid and exciting adventure on the high seas and a modern classic tale that has won its fair share of accolades and prizes.  It works, I think, because it is a good adventure with plenty of action, but features a girl, so draws in the girls as well as the boys.  There's great technical detail, so fans of naval adventures have plenty to bite into.  And it works on a human level as Charlotte has a heart and a strong moral core to make her an excellent heroine.  It's not much of a book for a moral or lesson, but you don't read books like this to learn about human nature.  Unfortunately, you do read books like this to be subjected to twenty course lesson plans in language arts classes (!), so if you are a grown up, enjoy the book as a free person!

Lucky for Good, by Susan Patron

Yet more about the inhabitants of Hard Pan in this final installment of Susan Patron's Lucky trilogy.  This time, the story centers around Brigitte's need to bring her cafe up to code, Miles's reunion with her mother (and adapting to having a mother again), and Lucky learning more about her family and coming to terms with her father's decision to abandon her.  As in the other two novels, the style remains plain enough for younger readers, but honest enough to resonate with grownups.

At times, the unstructured format of the story makes it hard to follow and there is a frustrating way for seemingly important threads to become neglected, but the overall flavor is so unique and charming that it is easy to overlook the flaws.  Even the folksy lifestyle of Hard Pan is applied lightly -- just enough to be enjoyable, providing us with a great collection of memorable characters, without becoming cloying or condescending.

Lyddie, by Katherine Paterson

In the 1840s in Vermont, Lyddie Worthen and her brother struggle to survive on their own.  Their father has gone West years ago and mother has fallen under the sway of an End Times preacher and given up on living.  When the family's debts reach the point that they can no longer keep the farm, the two children are sent to work:  Lyddie's brother to the mill and Lyddie herself to be a housekeeper.  Lyddie works hard but can't earn enough money to make any headway on repaying the debts.  So, when she learns of better opportunities in Lowell MA, working in the wool mills, she decides to strike out to seek her fortune.  It's back-breaking work, but Lyddie welcomes the opportunity to change her life.

Less outstanding for the writing than the extraordinary story it tells, Lyddie is a well-researched historical novel that will give you pause to reflect on how hard life can really be and how we rise to the challenges that we must face. Its lessons about perseverance have a timeless classic quality to them that often lands the book on summer reading lists.  Lyddie's life is harsh, but she accepts it with a level of grace and determination that make her a very inspiring heroine.

Incarnate, by Jodi Meadows

For as long as people in the Range have known, everyone is reincarnated when they die and the number of souls (and bodies) has been remained static.  Everyone, that is, except for Ana.  She's a "new soul" (or, as her mother tells her frequently, a "non soul") and not reincarnated at all.  She is, her mother says, a mistake.

But Ana is not convinced that she is as bad as Mom claims.  And after eighteen years of abuse at her mother's hands, Ana is ready to strike out on her own.  Ana's convinced that the answer lies in Heart, the capital city.  There, she hopes to get some answers about her origins and find out why she is the only one who is not reincarnated from a previous life.  On her way to Heart, she befriends a musician named Sam who becomes her guardian, mentor, and object of affection (although not quite her lover).  Acid-spitting dragons, wraith-like beasts called "sylphs," and Ana's meddlesome and evil mother fight her along the way.

It's an interesting setting and premise, but the story itself is a bit too leaden with adolescent rebellion. Ana's evil sadistic mother is more fantasy than the dragons and the wraiths, and a bit too much attention is spent on her.  I get the appeal to young readers, but the lengths to which Mom goes to get between Ana and Sam are ludicrous and some of the weakest parts of the story.

On a whole, the story starts off strong, but loses focus midway (about the time that Ana and Sam reach the city).  At first, we have the interesting thread of how (after years of emotional abuse) Ana has trouble trusting Sam.  But once the dragons show up, it starts getting weird, and the emotional growth is displaced by shooting and killing.  With a multitude of loose ends, I became painfully aware by the end that there must be a sequel to come (sure enough, due out in January 2013!).

Second Chance Summer, by Morgan Matson

Taylor has always run away when things got tough.  Five years ago, she ran away from Lake Phoenix, from her best friend Lucy, and from her first boyfriend Henry. And she never planned to come back.  But when her father is diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, he insists that the family to return to their old summer home on the Lake for one last summer together.  How are you going to argue with that?

And so, Taylor has to return and face Lucy and Henry again.  The return is difficult and her abandonment is not easily forgiven.  She expected that, but what surprises her is how it rekindles old feelings and makes her reconsider not just the decisions of her past but how her fear continues to control her life.  Her romantic feelings for Henry return and her longing to have Lucy back in her life points out the terrible costs of her tendency to run away.  Eventual forgiveness shows that second chances are actually possible.  The slow decline of her father, meanwhile, places some perspective on all this and how sometimes even a second chance is not enough.

Obviously, the ingredients here are guaranteed to be upsetting.  Between the nostalgia, the longing for lost friendships, and a dying parent, there had better be a Kleenex box nearby when you read this book! And since I do like a book that makes me cry, I'm going to like this one.  However, there are other things going for the book:  Taylor's emotions (and her fears, in particular) are very honest and striking.  The other characters have depth as well.  In a lengthy novel like this, we really get an opportunity to get under the skin of them all and it is an enlightening journey.  (The setting is beautiful, although I'm growing disturbed at the unusual socioeconomic status of the families depicted in these books!  Where do middle class people who can't afford summer homes go to have an amazing summer of memories?).

Still, the storytelling has some rough spots.  Matson has problems pacing the story, clustering events in spots and then having to skip past "a few weeks" or so until events get interesting.  It's understandable, but one wonders if she couldn't have planned the story a bit better to have a less jumpy chronology.  Also, dealing with lost romance and dying father may be too much for one novel.  Surprisingly, it actually works, but for the first half of the book, I felt like there were really two different stories going on.

Breaking Beautiful, by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

After the accident, Allie can't remember the details of what happened to her and her boyfriend Trip.  She doesn't know how she got her injuries (although she thinks she got thrown out of the truck) or why the truck went over the guardrail and into the ocean (taking Trip with it).  And while she wants to believe what the police are telling her -- that it was an accident -- she isn't sure.  Something about it doesn't seem right.

As she tries to remember what happened and also tries to rebuild her life, she discovers that the people in her small town aren't exactly sure about her either.  Gossip leads to accusations and Allie's troubled friend Blake becomes a suspect in a murder investigation.  If only Allie could remember what really happened!

The story begins with a promising start, but it gets dragged out.  Allie has a lot of trouble coming to terms with the abusive nature of her former relationship with Trip.  Survivor's guilt and general denial seems realistic enough and some struggling from Allie adds to the drama of the story.  But at some point, her refusal to seek help (or even tell the truth) becomes just plain annoying and implausible -- and more of an excuse to drag out the story than to explore the psychic damage of abuse or the recovery process from it.  And the ending of the book itself is a mess as Wolf strives for maximum melodrama in resolving the story.

The Unwritten Rule, by Elizabeth Scott

The unwritten rule is that you shouldn't fall in love with your best friend's boyfriend, but what if you loved him first?  And what if your best friend wasn't really acting like they should either?  Lusting about Ryan ought to be a non-starter for Sarah since Brianna is dating him, but Sarah can't help herself.  She also can't help but notice how poorly Brianna treats him (not that that would justify her desires, but it bothers her nonetheless!).  What she doesn't do as good a job of noticing is that Brianna doesn't exactly treat her that well either.

On its face, the love triangle ought to be a pretty tired genre, but Scott livens up the story by introducing a mild sense of evil (in the form of Brianna).  This is not done simply to make Sarah's betrayal of her BFF acceptable to the reader, but rather to add another dimension to it.

The story is also given legs by the way that Scott breathes real life into her characters.  Sarah is often wiser and more articulate than her years, but this gives her a chance to send the reader on a guided tour of the dysfunctions of her peers and their parents (Brianna's mother is a particularly formidible character).  So, while the action of the story doesn't surprise, the interactions of the characters do tread new ground -- particularly the complicated relationship between Sarah and Brianna.

The Diviners, by Libba Bray

It is the Roaring Twenties and Evie is a totally modern gal, which is why live in boring Ohio is unbearable.  And why being sent to New York City to live with her uncle is a dream come true.  New York is the city where it's at -- gin joints, hopping jazz, fashionable people -- just the place for a gal who wants to have some fun!

However, New York is also full of strange and evil things.  A murderer is loose in the city and engaged in a series of ritual murders.  Evie's uncle, an expert on the occult, has been consulting for the police and very quickly Evie herself gets drawn into the investigation.  Teamed up with a series of paranormally-enhanced and gin-addled friends, they are on the hunt.  The question is whether they can stop the killer before he manages to end the world.

It's Libba Bray's typical collection of crazy and wild ideas, which combine supernatural thriller with pulp fiction detective novel.  Bray has infused the story with a lot of detail, but there's no escaping the sheer corniness of the setting, which is part Ghostbusters and part Dick Tracy.  Either way, this extremely long tome (578 pages, you chumps!) is more cinema than literature -- light and airy, and largely insubstantial.  Obviously, since I read the whole thing, I can't have felt like it sucked, but it lacked the fun of Beauty Queens and ultimately seemed pretty silly.  And the last forty pages of the book existed merely to pave the way for an unnecessary sequel, while avoiding any sort of closure.

What Can(t) Wait, by Ashley Hope Perez

In the barrio of Houston, Marisa dreams of making something of herself.  It isn't easy.  She's good at math, bright and intelligent, and has supportive teachers, but between the need to work to help her family and their other demands, there frequently isn't enough time left to study or even attend school.  No member of her family shares her love for education and some of them (like her father) are downright hostile to her bookishness.  That would be enough or a challenge, but Marisa complicates things by occasionally messing up (especially with guys).  Still, she has a lot of drive and determination, and with some help from unexpected sources she just might make it.

It's a familiar story (Real Women Have Curves, anyone?), but a good one.  And told in this unvarnished and authentic fashion (with enough R-rated material to get the book-banners salivating), the novel has a lot of appeal.  It's gritty and sounds right (and not just because of the frequent use of Spanglish). 

It's the character of Marisa herself that carries this story.  If she had just been this virtuous hard-working young woman pursuing the American Dream, I would have gotten bored pretty quickly, but Perez gets extra points for allowing her to be flawed.  You want her to succeed so very badly that when she screws up, it breaks your heart.  But Perez doesn't milk it.  For every mistake, Marisa dusts herself off and jumps right back into things.  So, yes, she's tough, but she's got a lot of heart (and a thin skin on the things that matter to her) so she's also very endearing.  I rooted for her from the start and stuck with her to the end -- and I think it paid off quite well.

Being a product of a nice anglo suburb, I don't tend to have much interest in urban culture (or stories placed in such settings), but a great heroine transcends their environment and anyone can enjoy this book.  If urban latinas find something special to like in the book, so much the better, but white guys will like it too.

Alice on Board, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Now that the girls have graduated from High School, Alice is realizing that they will soon part and go off in different directions.  But for one more summer, they will be together, working on a cruise ship in the Chesapeake Bay.  It's hard work, but Alice gets to see a lot of scenery and they have some adventures.  Pamela is dealing with her needy mother, Gwen is trying out a new romance, and Alice herself is mostly fretting over Patrick and whether she is being too clingy.

It's another installment in Naylor's long-running series.  Alice's adventures aren't quite as cute as before and the books tend to read like serial installments, rather than as themed books, but Alice remains an interesting young woman (if, for no other reason, than there's been so much written about her).  Naylor is not quite in touch with the technology that is the foundation of adolescence (confusing Facebook with some sort of chat room or Craigslist) anymore and her writing style seems more grandmotherly, but this gives the books an innocent charm that make them popular with younger readers.  This particular installment is a bit more action-packed than some of the previous ones, but notably thinner on emotions, feelings, and getting inside Alice's head.

In many ways, this is probably my greatest reservation about the series.  Having tracked every little bit of Alice's life for 12+ years, we have a wonderful opportunity to explore why she feels like she does.  Occasionally, Alice lets down her guard and Naylor explores an idea briefly (in this example, there's a tease where Alice wonders if her clingy feelings are somehow tied to losing her mother when she was little), but the ideas are dropped just as quickly as they appear.  That makes the books overall superficial and frustrating.  Sure, we know when she got her first bra, had her first period, and lost her virginity, but not that much about her anxieties and her dreams.  A person's made up of more than anecdotes and milestones.

[Note:  This was supposed to be the very last book in the series, but apparently Naylor decided that she needed to do another one, so look forward to Always Alice, sometime in 2013.]

Want To Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman

Abby's having a hard time adjusting to High School.  She's shy and awkward, the school is big, the teachers different, and her best friend is distracted by different classes, extracurriculars, and a new boyfriend.  Abby's got a boy in school that she's crushing on too, but he isn't the focus of her life.  The focus of her life is Luke, a guy she's met online.  She knows all about stranger danger and how you shouldn't talk with people you don't know on the Internet, but Luke is different.  He's kind and caring and supports her all the time.  And as Abby struggles with her friends and family, she really needs Luke.  So, when Luke suggests that they meet, she decides to go for it.  The rest of the book deals with the consequences of that terrible mistake.

I have mixed feelings about this one.  Littman is tackling an important subject but she knows it.  The story is liberally littered with adults telling the reader about sexual predators online and how they "groom" their victims.  Lots of action in the story is really thinly-veiled advice about what to do (and not do) in situations like this.  The result is a pedantic story that terrorizes the reader as much as it enlightens them. I don't like books that preach, especially about something this obvious.  Want to help kids avoid sexual predators?  Show how those predators work.  But scaring them with graphic and nasty scenes?  With stories of how they will be subject to not only mortal danger, but (gasp!) the derision of their peers?  Why?  It seemed more like scare tactics and felt like exploitation.

Given the mission, the characters are largely secondary to the message.  The kids have endearing qualities, but I didn't really feel that I got to know them (and the adults are throwaway).  Most shockingly, I never really understood why Abby went with the guy.  We gets lots of repetition of the word "grooming process" as an explanation but its depiction in the book is shockingly sparse.  Rather than show the gradual process through which the predator insinuated himself into her trust, we jump roughly ahead a few months to later scenes where the guy has already trained her to disrobe on command.  As a result, we're left mystified as to why she would do this.  For the mission of the book and the understanding of the young readers to whom it is targeted, it would have made more sense to show that development process (and maybe lowered the explicitness of the yucky stuff).

Bitterblue, by Kristin Cashore

Not so much the latest installment of a trilogy as much as a parallel sequel to Graceling (taking a minor side-story and expanding it), this is ostensibly the story of how King Leck's daughter Bitterblue helped her kingdom come to terms with his murderous legacy.  Her efforts are complicated by the terror she still feels towards her father and a growing sense that her advisers are resistant to reforms.  Overcoming those fears becomes Bitterblue's own shining contribution.

The book is a bit longer and thematically more complex than the other books in the series.  Cashore is great with details and telling a complicated story.  This is a good thing since she has chosen two difficult tasks (to depict a very lively political scene and to dig in to the concept of terror and the way that one recovers from its trauma).  She's not always successful in keeping up a good pace to the story and the middle of the book starts to drag a bit with navel gazing peer counseling and a number of subplots that even Bitterblue's surly archivist writes off as "of questionable relevance."  The conclusion is also painfully drawn out, sending us through nearly 100 pages of tying up loose ends.  Still, one can be indulgent over the dull sections as the work overall is a magnificent and complex achievement that continues to develop the world of its two predecessors.

Bittersweet, by Sarah Ockler

Three years ago, Hudson was on her way to a professional career in figure skating.  And then she threw her skating competition.  Her teammates thought that she had just choked from the pressure, but the truth was that she and her mother had just found out that her Dad (her all-round biggest fan) was cheating on them.  And, in that moment on the rink, she realized that she wanted nothing more to do with him.  Since skating was the thing she did with him, she vowed that she would never do it again.

Now, with her Dad long gone, and Hudson, her little brother, and Mom trying to make ends meet, Hudson realizes that she misses skating after all.  A rare opportunity to skate in a competition again presents itself with a tantalizing offer:  a college scholarship that could be her ticket out of her dead-end life.  But in order to get practice time at a local rink, Hudson finds herself coaching the high school hockey team, which in turn leads her into the arms of not just the team's captain, but his smoldering co-captain as well.

If you get the sense that there is an awful lot going on in this story, then you would be right.  The nearly 400 pages of this novel are full of a dozen overlapping plots.  It seems that Hudson's life is complicated and complex.  Normally, I'm not a fan of such a busy story (I'd rather a writer choose a story and focus the novel around it), but it works in this case because much of the book's point is that Hudson's life is complicated and complex.  I'm not such a fan of Hudson herself (she's a bit spacy and not very responsible with her friends), but she's brave and fearless and I give her kudos for what she accomplishes in the story.  The ending is all a bit too over-the-top cheery and pink fluffy bunnies, but Hudson grows a great deal over the course of the story, so I was satisfied overall.

Lucky Breaks, by Susan Patron

Lucky and the odd-ball inhabitants of Hard Pan have aged a year or so.  Brigitte is trying to learn how to become an American (as well as a good mother to Lucky), Lincoln is mastering his knot tying skills and working out the secrets of the universe, and Miles - while still a bit weird - has been declared a genius.

And now there's a new girl - Pamona - the niece of a scientist working in the area.  She's the same age as Lucky and - Lucky hopes - might potentially become her best friend.  But Pamona also shakes up things as Lucky struggles to come to terms that in order to have a best friend, one has to be a best friend (and not just to Pamona, but to Lincoln and Miles as well).

It's been a while since I read the first book (The Higher Power of Lucky), but I remember being enchanted by the quirky characters, gentle storytelling, and kindheartedness of that book.  That all continues here, but in the sequel it wears a bit thin.  Maybe it's because the story itself never really gels, but instead rambles around between subjects.  Or maybe the appeal of the original is lost once the novelty fades.  Either way, I found it hard to engage with the book.  It was pleasant to read, but ultimately forgettable.

Lexie, by Audrey Couloumbis

It's the first summer that Lexie's parents haven't been together, so it feels particularly weird to be going out to the beach house with only Dad.  Weird to leave her Mom in the city, but also a little good - a feeling with which Lexie struggles. 

When they get out to the shore, Lexie is in for number of surprises:  Dad has invited a "friend" to join them and she's coming with two boys.  Lexis is torn about this:  she hates having to share her father with other people, but she grows to like the boys and even her father's friend.

Couloumbis can be a bland writer.  I didn't care much for her acclaimed novel Getting Near to Baby because I found it dull and boring.  However, for a story with this book's subtle complexity, Couloumbis's style works well.  The characters here are smart and insightful and the feelings they express are complicated.  It is a gentle story that avoids melodrama and instead explores how the process of changing families can be both good and bad at the same time.  Lexie and the boys are allowed to both love and hate the changes that are happening around them, and even the adults get to express their feelings as mixture of joy, fear, and sadness.  While the kids can seem a bit precocious at times, I think that is mostly because we are used to dumbed-down characters in books like this.  In the world of Lexie's beach house, it all seemed quite reasonable.  The story itself breaks little new ground, but its treatment of the subject of divorce and remarriage makes this smart little book notable.

The Unforgotten Coat, by Frank Cottrell Boyce

It's a memorable day for Julie when two Mongolian boys show up unannounced at her school.  While they struggle with the language, the boys quickly assert themselves as different and Julie is entranced.  The older boy Chingis announces that Julie will be their "good guide" and help them understand their new home.  Julie is pleased to accept.  However, the younger boy Nergui is afraid that a demon is after them and the boys (with their new guide) must find a way to escape Nergui's nemesis.  Told in flashback and through a series of Polaroids, Boyce lays out a story that is both magical and yet very down-to-earth, ultimately exploring the immigrant experience.

For a very brief book (under 100 pages, with many photographs), I found it strangely moving.  The story lives on minimalism, with Boyce preferring to do less with his words and more with the images.  The book's design (like a notebook with lined-paper pages) and enigmatic photographs are striking and integral to the story.  The overall product is effective and original.

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

With Lucy's older sister going away to College, Lucy is psyched to be getting their room to herself.  She's also looking forward to going out for captain of the basketball team this year.  Sixth grade is going to be totally great!

But then things go awry.  Her late grandmother's long-lost sister is coming to visit and Lucy is going to have to share her room with the old woman for several months.  And Lucy's parents have decided that Lucy needs to attend Chinese school on Saturday mornings, even if it means missing basketball practice!  She just wants to be a normal American kid, yet her family keeps forcing her to be Chinese!  And no one seems to care that she loves basketball!

A gentle (albeit mildly preachy) story about the power of silver linings.  As is typical in books for this age group, Lucy begins as a self-centered (and mildly bratty) kid and ends up more open-minded and considerate.  It's a satisfying model, but doesn't offer a lot of surprises.  What works better is Wan-Long Shang's ability to work in a lot of Chinese culture, and to remind us that it doesn't exist in a vacuum (i.e., being Chinese-American means bringing the two cultures together).  She also does a nice job of bringing generations together as Lucky's visiting great-aunt proves to have some unexpected strengths.

The Difference Between You and Me, by Madeleine George

Jesse is a rebel and an outcast, from the huge fisherman's boots she wears to the angry manifestos she posts on the walls at school.  She's got an agenda and she's not shy about trumpeting it.  Emily, on the other hand, is the perky clean-cut student government vice president with a plan for everything and an explanation for every twist and turn in her life.  Nothing scares her more than the chaos and disorder that epitomize Jesse's life. Together, they are an unlikely couple, and yet are strongly attracted to each other. However, as hot as it gets between them, it is all under wraps as Emily must maintain a perfect sheen to the outside world.  Jesse, strangely enough, tolerates this because of her serious lust for Emily.  However, these compromised arrangements come undone when a big box store comes to town and the girls find themselves on opposite sides of the debate over whether such stores benefit the communities in which they operate and whether corporations have a place in public schools.

I absolutely loved the human interactions in this story.  From the way that the girls talk to each other to the interactions that Jesse and her parents have, the dialogue and the behaviors rang true.  I was less thrilled with the plotting, which was uneven and cluttered with subplots.  Perhaps because I found the relationship of Jesse and Emily to be so interesting, I really didn't care about anything but the girls, and I found myself racing past anything else in the book to get back to them.

The Disenchantments, by Nina LaCour

Upon graduating from high school, Colby knows exactly what he's going to do for the next year:  go on a short tour up the West Coast with The Disenchantments (an all-girl band, made up of his three best friends from school).  None of the members can play, but what they lack in talent they make up for with spirit and energy.  Afterwards, he and Bev (one of the girls in the band) are going to bum around Europe for the rest of the year.  Afterwards, perhaps they'll go to college.

However, on the first day on the road, Bev confesses that her plans have changed and that she's going to Art School in the fall instead.  Naturally, this makes life on the road together a bit awkward and tense.  As with all good road trip stories, there's plenty of discovery along the way.  By the end, Colby figures it out and learns that often life just hands you random stuff.

It's a very dialogue-heavy book, without much of a narrative thrust.  The plot just rolls along however it feels and the characters spend a lot of time talking.  For this reason chiefly, the book never managed to grab me.  It isn't that it was dull, but simply not very adventurous or ambitious.

Without Tess, by Marcella Pixley

For the past five years, Lizzie has been struggling with coming to terms with the death of her older sister.  As children, the two girls were tightly bonded and shared an intense love of fantasy and make-believe, with Tess always leading the way.  As they grow older and Lizzie begins to outgrow both the make-believe and her intense devotion for her sister, Tess retreats more and more into fantasy, eventually leading to tragedy.

Told in a combination of flashbacks, Tess's poetry, and counseling sessions, this is a gritty and bare-open portrayal of mental illness and the impact it can have on a young family.  I liked Pixley's previous novel Freak a lot, but this book is on an entirely different playing field.  The anecdotes are so raw and so confessional, that it's impossible to remain impassive.  Knowing the tragic ending that awaits in no way prepares you for it.  Pixley does let us off a bit with a positive ending, but you will be in tears by the end of the book.

There's so much to love here.  The writing is superb and recalls the wistfulness of early Sarah Dessen.  The imagery ranges from the naturalistic (the seaside setting is employed to great effect) to the spiritual (Lizzie's flirtation with Catholicism is wonderfully juxtaposed with the "betrayal" of her sister).  The characters are amazing (whether it is the lyric Tess herself, her scared sister Lizzie, the well-meaning neighbors, or the confused parents) and every portrayal is spot on.  These people seemed real to me and my heart went out to each of them.  Without a doubt, one of the truly great books I've read all year, although it will undoubtedly break your heart!