revisited this (as one does) after a long time. It has not aged well, in a cultural sense. is there a period of time, like a limbo, before a book becomes an artifact that still has value? it's amazing to me that this story about some privileged white kids sheltered in an upper-east-side-of-manhattan bubble once had such universal appeal. or maybe my idea of universal appeal has changed. I loved it as a kid and still do. the author was queer and described harriet as a “nasty little girl who keeps a notebook on all her friends.” so there's that. all the characters were boomers, who knows what they would be like now.