"On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, it began to rain. Barbara Perry, who took everything personally, stood at the dining-room window, filled with reproach, and looked at the dripping garden. It looked so shining, so gray and unspeakably wet."

I picked up this teen novel from 1957 at the Friends of the Library bookstore, because for some reason these teen books in the old buckram covers always turn out to be strangely great.

This one was actually even better than usual. It's a small story, where not a lot happens--'a girl named Barbara goes Christmas caroling, and then to a party' is a fairly accurate description of the action.
But the main action is internal; Barbara is a typically disaffected and self-absorbed teen who happened to grow up in a family that she can't even resent (except for maybe being too happy) and she is constantly daydreaming, spending so much time imagining what people are thinking of her that she never actually engages with them.

It's hard to describe exactly why I loved this book so much, except that the characters are just so well drawn, and the writing is completely charming. I love how she describes the living room as having a "powerful old sofa that even the dog couldn't wreck".
I love her parents, who have mostly figured out how to be happy in themselves but wonder if they've failed Barbara somehow, and I especially like her brothers, who are entirely strange but have a self-contained and beautiful world and everyone loves them and wonders how they got that way. ( )