First, the good news: this book has a genuinely interesting premise, the writing is tight and concise, and the ending was a genuine surprise. 
 Next, the bad news: the overall story is-- for lack of a better term-- icky. I have extremely mixed feelings about Wolitzer's treatment of the "emotionally fragile" heroine. I'm not comfortable with the way her mental illness was handled (or not handled, as it were), and everything was tied up a little too neatly at the end. The idea of Belzhar as a place for healing has a ton of potential, but I don't think the story that was written around this great idea did it justice.