I first read this young adult novel in 1995, when I was, in fact, a young adult. I was very much an "Asa" myself and identified strongly with him. The writing, the emotions, the heartbreaking realism--all superb. I read it again yesterday, and yes, it's still my favorite young adult novel. It might not be for everyone. It isn't a feel-good story, and it's almost never pretty. I've seen several instances where people couldn't quite believe Asa as a realistic character, but I assure you, there are many little Asa's running around in the world right now, and this book is for them.I most recently purchased the Kindle Edition. Unfortunately, there are several typos, seemingly from whatever OCR software was used to create it. There are two instances where "and" became "arid" and at least two cases where "kind" became "land." There are also several stray apostrophes spread throughout (perhaps from flecks or imperfections in the original pages), as well as a few random characters and symbols attached to the ends of words. These issues don't make the Kindle Edition unreadable, but they are noticeable and sometimes distracting.If you simply must have it now, definitely go for the e-book. If you can wait, get a paper copy.