Sybil at Sixteen

Pfeffer's Sebastian Sisters series earns credit for its unsentimental honesty about financial hardship and dysfunctional family dynamics in YA long before that became fashionable. Sybil's quiet, perceptive voice is a genuine strength, and the series arc's emotional stakes are real. The caveat is that the suicide thread running through the broader series and the requirement to read the prior books make this a best-read-in-context recommendation rather than a standalone.