Review - The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

Title and Author: The Truth About Forever

Publisher: Puffin

Publication Date: May 1st, 2004

Paperback/Hardcover: 374

Genre: Young Adult

Summary:

Sixteen-year-old Macy Queen is looking forward to a long, boring summer. Her boyfriend is going away. She's stuck with a dull-as-dishwater job at the library. And she'll spend all of her free time studying for the SATs or grieving silently with her mother over her father's recent unexpected death. But everything changes when Macy is corralled into helping out at one of her mother's open house events, and she meets the chaotic Wish Catering crew. Before long, Macy joins the Wish team. She loves everything about the work and the people. But the best thing about Wish is Wes—artistic, insightful, and understanding Wes—who gets Macy to look at life in a whole new way, and really start living it.

Review:

I’m yet to read a book by Sarah Dessen I haven’t enjoyed. The Truth About Forever did not disappoint me.

The Truth About Forever is the story of Macy Queen whose life changed completely after her father died in front of her. Since that day Macy has been trying to be perfect and hold it all together for the sake of her family, especially her mother. When Macy’s perfect boyfriend goes to Brain Camp during summer, she meets and befriends the Wish catering crew. Amongst the new people she meets there’s Wes who is far from perfect and who makes Macy understand perfection might be overrated.

I really liked Macy it was easy to understand what she was going through and why she tried so hard to be perfect. Macy is, of course, flawed but she’s also sweet and it’s nice being able to see her grow as the story develops.

Wes is a great character as well. Sarah Dessen’s boys are always great but I think, so far, Wes is my favorite one. He doesn’t believe in perfection. He likes flaws and he’s sweet and very mature.

I also liked all the secondary characters in this story, especially Bert. He was so sweet and so… Bert like. :D Kristy and Delia were great as well. Every single character in this story brings something to it. They help Macy grow and overcome her problems and fears. The interaction between all the characters is simply great.

I enjoyed the way the relationship between Macy and Wes developed. They became good friends before becoming anything else. They got to know each other through games of truth that brought them together.

The Truth About Forever is an extremely well-written book that deals with an interesting issue.

If you like the Young Adult genre, you’ll definitely be able to enjoy this fun, fast and sweet story.

Rating: Worth Your Time (4 Stars)

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Review - Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

Title and Author: Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

Publisher: Viking Juvenile

Publication Date: April 6th, 2006

Paperback/Hardcover: 384

Genre: Young Adult

Summary:

Last year, Annabel was "the girl who has everything"—at least that's the part she played in the television commercial for Kopf's Department Store.This year, she's the girl who has nothing: no best friend because mean-but-exciting Sophie dropped her, no peace at home since her older sister became anorexic, and no one to sit with at lunch. Until she meets Owen Armstrong. Tall, dark, and music-obsessed, Owen is a reformed bad boy with a commitment to truth-telling. With Owen's help,maybe Annabel can face what happened
the night she and Sophie stopped being friends.

Review:

I’ve read Just Listen a while back, and like every other book by Sarah Dessen I’ve read so far. I really liked it.

Annabel is a teenager trying to deal with several different issues. She tries to pretend everything is okay but it becomes increasingly hard to pretend her family is falling apart and that her best friend no longer speaks to her.

Annabel tries to pretend her life is perfect but she quickly realizes nothing is perfect, especially when she befriends Owen, who forces her to see things in a different way

In this book Sarah Dessen writes in a mixture of flashbacks and present situations, revealing more and more about Annabel’s story as time goes by.

I think it’s easy to relate to Annabel. Even though some people seem to think she was weak but I think she was simply confused. She kept too many things to herself. When she meets Owens he starts to change. He forces her to start being honest with others, and most of all, with herself. Her carefully constructed façade of everything is fine starts to crumble then.

Owen is a good character as well. Sarah Dessen definitely knows how to make her male characters extremely likeable and all around amazing. I loved the fact Owen is extremely honest and that music meant so much to him. Owen looks like your average bad boy but he’s much, much more than that.

I enjoyed the relationship between Annabel and Owen and now it developed. They are two very different people but they somehow fit well together.

All in all I really enjoyed this book. It deals with issues some teenagers, and adults, as well, have to face like the importance of family, friendship and of being yourself. I loved the fact music played such an important part in the book as well.

This book is extremely well written and the dialogue between the characters is great.. It a fast read I think any YA fan will be able to enjoy.

Rating: Worth Your Time (4 Stars)

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Sarah Dessen

Hello, how are you all?

This weekend is dedicated to Sarah Dessen. Reviews and a giveaway will be posted soon so watch out for that. :)

For now, let's get to know Sarah Dessen and her books a little better.

Author's Bio:

"Sarah Dessen grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and attended UNC-Chapel Hill, graduating with highest honors in Creative Writing. She is the author of several novels, including Someone Like You, Just Listen and Along for the Ride. A motion picture based on her first two books, entitled How to Deal, was released in 2003. Her tenth novel,What Happened to Goodbye, will be published in May 2011. She lives in North Carolina."

 Sarah Dessen Books:

Title and Author: That Summer
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Publication Date: 1996
Paperback/Hardcover: 240
Genre: Young Adult 

For fifteen-year-old Haven, life is changing too quickly. She's nearly six feet tall, her father is getting remarried, and her sister—the always perfect Ashley—is planning a wedding of her own. Haven wishes things could just go back to the way they were. Then an old boyfriend of Ashley's reenters the picture, and through him, Haven sees the past for what it really was, and comes to grips with the future.

Title and Author: How to Deal
Publisher:
Publication Date: 1998
Paperback/Hardcover: 496
Genre: Young Adult 

Rule #1: There are no rules Just when you think you've got everything figured out for yourself, things get turned upside down. Families change. Lives end. New lives begin. And love sneaks up on you when you least expect it. The trick is finding that one person you can always count on, that one person who will throw out the rules and help you figure out how to deal with it all.
Here, from acclaimed author Sarah Dessen, are two books about girls who stick together and manage to get it right -- the two books that served as inspiration for the film How to Deal, starring Mandy Moore. Read them, and you'll see where Halley and Scarlett's story began.

Title and Author: Someone Like You
Publisher:
Publication Date: August 15th, 1998
Paperback/Hardcover: 281
Genre: Young Adult 

Halley has always followed in the wake of her best friend, Scarlett. But when Scarlett learns that her boyfriend has been killed in a motorcycle accident, and that she's carrying his baby, she's devastated. For the first time ever, Scarlett really needs Halley. Their friendship may bend under the weight, but it'll never break--because a true friendship is a promise you keep forever.

Title and Author: Keeping the Moon
Publisher:
Publication Date: September 1st, 1999
Paperback/Hardcover: 228
Genre: Young Adult 

Colie expects the worst when she's sent to spend the summer with her eccentric aunt Mira while her mother, queen of the television infomercial, tours Europe. Always an outcast -- first for being fat and then for being "easy" -- Colie has no friends at home and doesn't expect to find any in Colby, North Carolina. But then she lands a job at the Last Chance Cafe and meets fellow waitresses Morgan and Isabel, best friends with a loving yet volatile relationship. Wacky yet wise, Morgan and Isabel help Colie see herself in a new way and realize the potential that has been there all along.

Title and Author: Dreamland
Publisher:
Publication Date: September 1st, 2000
Paperback/Hardcover: 250
Genre: Young Adult 

Rogerson Biscoe, with his green eyes and dark curly hair, is absolutely seductive. Before long, sixteen-year-old Caitlin finds herself under his spell. And when he starts to abuse her, she finds she's in too deep to get herself out..

Title and Author: This Lullaby
Publisher:
Publication Date: May 27th, 2002
Paperback/Hardcover: 345
Genre: Young Adult 

When it comes to relationships, Remy doesn't mess around. After all, she's learned all there is to know from her mother, who's currently working on husband number five. But there's something about Dexter that seems to defy all of Remy's rules. He certainly doesn't seem like Mr. Right. For some reason, however, Remy just can't seem to shake him. Could it be that Remy's starting to understand what those love songs are all about?

Title and Author: The Truth About Forever
Publisher: Puffin
Publication Date: May 1st, 2004
Paperback/Hardcover: 374
Genre: Young Adult 

Sixteen-year-old Macy Queen is looking forward to a long, boring summer. Her boyfriend is going away. She's stuck with a dull-as-dishwater job at the library. And she'll spend all of her free time studying for the SATs or grieving silently with her mother over her father's recent unexpected death. But everything changes when Macy is corralled into helping out at one of her mother's open house events, and she meets the chaotic Wish Catering crew. Before long, Macy joins the Wish team. She loves everything about the work and the people. But the best thing about Wish is Wes—artistic, insightful, and understanding Wes—who gets Macy to look at life in a whole new way, and really start living it.

Title and Author: Along for the Ride
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Publication Date: June 11th, 2009
Paperback/Hardcover: 399
Genre: Young Adult 

It’s been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parents’ divorce—or since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming beach town where they live.
A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town. Together they embark on parallel quests: for Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life she’s been denied; for Eli, to come to terms with the guilt he feels for the death of a friend.
In her signature pitch-perfect style, Sarah Dessen explores the hearts of two lonely people learning to connect.

  

Title and Author: What Happened to Goodbye

Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Publication Date: May 1oth, 2011
Paperback/Hardcover: 402
Genre: Young Adult

   

Who is the real McLean?
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 Dave, the guy next door, can help her find out.
Combining Sarah Dessen's trademark graceful writing, great characters, and compelling storytelling, What Happened to Goodbye is irresistible reading.

You can find Sarah at:

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Review - Along For The Ride by Sarah Dessen

Title and Author: Along For The Ride by Sarah Dessen 

Publisher: Viking Children's Books

Publication Date: June 16, 2009

Paperback: 416 pages

Genre: Young Adult

Summary:

It's been so long since Auden slept at night. Ever since her parents' divorce-or since the fighting started. Now she has the chance to spend a carefree summer with her dad and his new family in the charming town where they live.

A job in a clothes boutique introduces Auden to the world of girls: their talk, their friendship, their crushes. She missed out on all that, too busy being the perfect daughter to her demanding mother. Then she meets Eli, an intriguing loner and a fellow insomniac who becomes her guide to the nocturnal world of the town. Together they embark on parallel quests: for Auden, to experience the carefree teenage life she's been denied; for Eli, to come to terms with the guilt he feels for the death of a friend.

Review:

This was the first Sarah Dessen book I read and I have to say I really liked it.

"Along for the Ride” is an easy, fairly fast paced and entertaining read which has a plot that kept me hooked and turning the pages until the end.

The book might not be overly interesting at times but it surely is addicting. You want to know what will happen to the characters and how they will deal with their problems.

The main character, Auden, is an extremely studious girl, an overachiever and just too serious for her own good. She never truly got to enjoy high school, have fun or make friends and that’s why after receiving a present from her brother, who is the exact opposite of her and has spent the most part of two years travelling through Europe, she decides to spend her summer in a town named Colby with her father, stepmother and their newborn baby girl.

At Colby she finds her father completely immersed in his work, her stepmother near an emotion breakdown and a job she didn’t truly want at first. Working at her stepmother’s store, Auden, meets three girls who she immediately labels as frivolous. She comes to realize she is wrong about them as her story develops.

Auden can’t sleep at night and it turns out neither does Eli, a guy she keeps bumping into. Together they embark on a quest to give Auden the opportunity to enjoy the childhood she never had.

Auden is a likeable character and so are the supporting characters with their colorful personalities and friendships. I especially like Adam and Maggie. I do think the character of Eli could have been a little more explored and developed, though. He’s an interesting character dealing with some heavy issues and it would have been interesting to learn more about him.

I enjoyed how Auden and Eli connected because of their quests and how, even though, the book focuses on Auden, the issues her stepmother faced after having a baby were also mentioned and explored.

One other thing I liked was the fact that Sarah Dessen writes about the world in which we all live in and describes it beautifully.

All in all this was a very interesting book and a light and smart read that I highly recommend.

Rating: Worth Your Time