I basically love Ann Rindaldi. But every author hits a clinker, and I think that this was hers. It was more like a chore than an adventure to read this book. I mean, why does this lieutenant that the reader knows next to nothing about suddenly reveal his romantic passions for a schoolgirl, anyway? I mean, the man has got to be twice her age, but in Ann's books,and I do mean most of her books, this is going to turn into the marriage of a middle-school-aged child to an officer in the army. And I actually found the narrator to be an obnoxious and dull girl who adds nothing to the plotline. A few traces of her better writings played peek-a-boo every now and then, but it wasn't anything I would reccomend to a friend, you know what I mean? I'd reccomend "An Aquaintance with Darkness."