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Overall, my reaction is: Some beautiful moments spoiled by overload.
Also, I prefer my novels to have something more substantial in the way of story or structure. Obviously there was a overt purpose to the book: to mark a significant stage in the growing up of a pair of young boys. But such a purpose is more usually background to some other narrative (the narrative often designed to reinforce the purpose), and I think it works better that way.
Without overarching events to hold it together, this book begins to feel like eating sugar straight out the bowl, one deeply descriptive and emotional scene after another. And, because of this intensity, many of the life lessons come across as too bluntly told, and so feel trite and over-stated. I couldn't help but compare this to Stephen King's novella "The Body", or novel "It", that portray quite similar feelings and lessons regarding childhood (albeit 50s rather than 20s), but without that cloying sense (in this book by Bradbury) of being preached at by a well meaning but embarrassing Great Aunt.
There are some wonderful parts in this book. The opening scenes in particular, but also many of the interactions between Douglas and Tom were, I thought, very well done - much better (more real to me) than the interactions with Douglas and his friends. And the scene with Tom and his mother waiting for Douglas was touching, all the more so for coming before any explanation of the Lonely One.
But I felt some parts were clumsy, overdone or strained to breaking point. The Happiness Machine was one such, a cute idea that was warped into a bludgeon for the reader. Old Mrs Bently and the nasty little girls Alice and Jane (all watched over by Tom) was another, although I did get a chuckle when the girls said they'd never be old like Mrs Bently, because I had to agree: I figured someone was going to murder the little ingrates long before they got to that age. But these parts never felt real to me.
And then there were parts told outside the boys' perspectives (such as with Lavinia), that might have been very well told but seemed out of place.
There is a lot to this relatively short book, and much of it was beautifully written and quite moving. But overall I have to say the overload and mismatching parts spoiled it for me.
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