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POLLY SHULMAN Julie Lefkowitz is accustomed to public embarrassment: "When your best friend goes around town dressed in armor constructed from cookware, eyes naturally turn your way." Julie's best friend is Ashleigh, and Ashleigh is an enthusiast: she gets obsessed--way, over-the-top obsessed--with things like King Arthur or ballet or juggling. Ashleigh's latest craze is Jane Austen, and in addition to dressing in gowns and talking in period English, she persuades long-suffering Julie to crash a dance at a fancy all-boys private school, hoping to meet a Mr. Darcy, or at least a Mr. Bingley. Winsome and witty, loaded with lunatic junior-high aperçus ("Juliet's not even 14 yet," a young Shakespeare scholar remarks. "He's going to kill himself over an eighth-grader?"), Enthusiasm has the makings of an instant classic.