14y/o liked this a lot more than the original books (which have not  really aged well due to gender norms and frankly most of the parents coming off as abusive in one way or another). Was not expecting a cliffhanger ending! Will have to see about getting the next one from the library, but neither of us are really in any rush. 

(Nice to see Ann M Martin is still up to her parenthetical speaking ways, which I undoubtedly picked up from reading a million BSC books in the 80s.)