YA Fiction

The Moon and More

Published by on June 21, 2013 | Leave a response

dessenbanner

Intro | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

 

themoonandmoreTITLE: The Moon and More

AUTHOR: Sarah Dessen

GENRE: YA Contemporary

FORMAT: eBook, 303 Pages (2013)

It’s the summer before her first semester of university and Emaline is expecting to spend it working for her family’s summer rental company, hanging out with Luke, her long term boyfriend and best friends Daisy and Moris. But things take a turn when her relationship with Luke shifts, a cute film student from New York, Theo, arrives in town to work on a documentary about a local recluse artist and her absentee father comes back into her life. Emaline must find a way to deal with these changes and find out for herself where her future lies.

I really enjoyed The Moon and More. I haven’t read a Dessen novel in years and I’m so happy this was the one I ended up reading! Emaline is easily one of my favourite contemporary YA heroines. I could see my 18 year old self in her. She struggles with trying to decide for herself what she wants when it comes to her future, whether it’s with Luke and what university are all things that teenagers go through during that awkward time when you aren’t high school student anymore but not quite yet an adult.

I loved how Emaline and Luke’s storyline was done even with the hurt between them. I really enjoyed them as a couple and am still rooting for them! Even though The Moon and More has romance element to it, it isn’t the center of the story but rather a setting to which Emaline’s path is set to. The story is about Emaline falling back in love with her small town and realizing that what she wants and expected from her life is just as good as what others expect from her. I also found the portrayal between Emaline and her estranged father to be excellent. The struggle she has with how her father and Theo keep telling her that she should want more then her small town life, that she is better then that really worked for me. That conflict within her was my favourite aspect of the story. Her relationship with her father rang true and showed that sometimes there isn’t always a happy ending but that’s OK. In fact, I would say that all the relationships between the characters was done beautifully. I understood why these people were friends, how their family dynamic works and what connects them all and to this small town. This is by far one of the best, well rounded YA books I’ve read character wise.
(more…)

What Happened to Goodbye

Published by on June 20, 2013 | Leave a response

dessenbanner

Intro | 1 | 2 | 3

 WhatHappenedTITLE: What Happened to Goodbye

AUTHOR: Sarah Dessen

GENRE: YA Contemporary

FORMAT: eBook, 266 Pages (2011)

Since her parents’ bitter divorce, Mclean and her dad, a restaurant consultant, have been on the move – four towns in two years. Estranged from her mother and her mother’s new family, Mclean has followed her dad in leaving the unhappy past behind. And each new place gives her a chance to try out a new persona: from cheerleader to drama diva. But now, for the first time, Mclean discovers a desire to stay in one place and just be herself – whoever that is. Perhaps her neighbor Dave, an academic superstar trying to be just a regular guy, can help her find out. (from Goodreads)

Mclean has let herself be defined by her parent’s divorce. She jumps on the opportunity to essentially run away from everything relating to the divorce by going to live with her father. She doesn’t deal with her emotions and instead hides in the new personalities she creates for herself in each new town, knowing that she’ll be able to reinvent herself in a few months.

I found that it did a wonderful job of addressing how a child feels after their parent’s divorce and the unfortunate tendency of parent’s to think what happens between them doesn’t impact the child. I did enjoy the characters and book but something throughout lacked for me. I liked Mclean; I understood her pain and sympathized with her. I was completely on her side about how she felt about her mom and understood why avoiding was easier and bringing up the painful subject. Where the story lost me was how Mclean ended up dealing and resolving her feelings towards her mom. It just didn’t work for me. There was a similar situation in The Sea of Tranquility and I found that the way that author revealed the main character’s pain to her family and how it brought her and the family to talk and start to resolve their issues so well that I was hoping for something similar here but didn’t get it. The catalyst between McLean and her mother didn’t work for me: it felt sudden and the shift in McLean’s attitude too sudden. I knew that Mclean would eventually start mending the fence with her mom but I wanted more of it. I wanted to read more about her mom talking with Mclean and making dealing with what she says. So much of the story and Mclean is defined by her mother’s actions towards her yet at the peak of their story, I felt it fell flat.
(more…)

Along For the Ride

Published by on June 19, 2013 | 2 Responses

dessenbannerIntro | 1 | 2 | 3

058_alongfortherideTITLE: Along For the Ride

AUTHOR: Sarah Dessen

GENRE: YA Contemporary

FORMAT: eBook, 383 Pages

Auden has always felt more alive at night. She escapes the confines of her quiet, scripted life and drives out into the darkness, drinking coffee in all-night diners or just feeling the wind on her face. When she decides to do something different for the summer and stay with her father, stepmother and newborn stepsister in the seaside town of Colby, Auden doesn’t expect her nocturnal existence to change. But as it turns out, she isn’t the only one who stays up all night, and despite everything she’s learned to believe, change still can happen to anyone and anything.

I have so much love for this book. I know it’s often the case that the first book you read from an author is the most magical experience and you won’t be able to recreate it. Sort of like a law of diminishing returns, only for books. But Along For the Ride surprised me by quickly becoming a contender for my favorite Dessen book ever, and this is after reading four of her books within the last few weeks. If you choose The Truth About Forever as your first Sarah Dessen novel, make Along For the Ride your second.

(more…)

Lock & Key

Published by on June 18, 2013 | 2 Responses

dessenbannerIntro | 1 | 2

055_lockandkeyTITLE: Lock & Key

AUTHOR: Sarah Dessen

GENRE: YA Contemporary

FORMAT: eBook, 283 Pages (2008)

Ruby knows how to fend for herself. After all, she’s been doing that for the past few months. Scraping a living together from her after school job, living alone in the little yellow house she used to share with her mother, she finally has a degree of independence. But the show is over, because her mother is missing and now Ruby’s estranged sister has reappeared in her life after years of not being there when they needed each other the most. Cora and her husband Jamie take Ruby back with them to their palatial home in the suburbs, enroll her in a prestigious private school, and seem determined to give her everything she lacked throughout her childhood. But why is living the easy life so much harder than getting by on her own?

Ruby, the product of a broken  home and a single parent who isn’t much of a parent at all, is an entire world removed from the protagonist of The Truth About Forever, which was my first ever Sarah Dessen book. While Macy has a roof over her head, money in the bank and a pretty secure existence, Ruby has had to cope with abuse and neglect. When her sister whisks her away from what she knows, it’s like being relocated to an alien planet. Lock and Key deals with some tougher issues than I’ve seen so far in this author’s work, and while it had some flaws, I still think it handled those difficult topics very well, and that it ended with a familiar sense of hope that is iconic of Dessen’s books.

(more…)