Book: Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
Genre: YA
Rating: A-
For: Fun
This was the book JJ read during all of the readathon, and she seemed to totally love it. So as soon as I could, I picked it up and also read it quite quickly. Gotta love those Sarah Dessen books!
This one is about a girl named Auden, who decides to spend the summer before college hanging with her dad and step mom and their brand new baby. The step mom has major adjustment problems to the baby, the dad is a total jerk, and Auden ends up doing much to help them. Of course, she meets a quiet, mysterious, brooding dude. It appears he was a major biker in his former life, but something has happened to completely change him, and now he apparently is not himself... quite.
They discover that they have an interesting thing in common.... they can't sleep, so they end up spending their nights together roaming the town. Interesting premise. I would freak, as a mom, if my kid was doing that. Sheesh.
Anyway, great story. But now that I've read, I think, five Dessen novels, I'm tending to rank them. This one would fall in the middle. Lock and Key, and Just Listen remain at the top! This one tended to focus on the parent's problems too much... and I didn't really care about them. They were most irritating. I did like that the language wasn't as rough in this one as it has been in others. It was still there, just not as abundant.
Other reviews:
I haven't read the two that are your favorites yet. This one was below The Truth About Forever for me. I could kinda buy them not paying attention. I was a responsible high school kid and had a lot of freedom the summer after. I didn't ever DO anything, and I doubt I could have stayed out ALL night, but I wasn't overly supervised. This sounds so bad! Not neglected, just free.
ReplyDeleteThis book IS fun. I'm missing summer already. Might be time to read another Sarah Dessen. Lock & Key is on my list next. Thanks for the link! :)
ReplyDeleteI need to read more Sarah Dessen books.
ReplyDeleteI so want to read this one. Sarah Dessen's books are all such fun.
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