The Dollar Kids

At some point in my youth I saw The Spitfire Grill. Since then, I've been taken in by stories like this. Truthfully, I really liked this BUT I think it tried to be too many things at once and that resulted in a bog down of storytelling.
I loved the story about the “Dollar Houses”, I loved learning about Millville, I loved the Grovers, and I loved the overall plot line.
The death and constant reappearance of Abe didn't work for me. It pulled me out of the story and put me in a whole other story. I found that distracting. Also distracting was the whole relationship with Luna, and Clem's pulling away from the family.
Here's what totally worked for me: the main plot, the town, the kooky townspeople, the pasty shop, the exploration of socio-economic status between the newcomers and the Millville residents. All of that was awesome. Occasionally, there were some allusions to racism. That was not fully explored, perhaps because it would have been just one more thing-and this book was already filled with too many things.
I loved the character of Dylan. At first, I couldn't understand how the Grovers were allowing him to just show up, but I grew to really like that kid and he is important to the main plot.