RSS FeedBildungsroman - Author Spotlight: Sarah Dessen
And I did. At the urging of one of my regular customers, a very passionate reader who was in high school at the time, I read Dreamland first. I quickly blazed through Sarah's backlist, reading them in the order they had been released. By the time I got to This Lullaby, Sarah had firmly secured a place on the list of contemporary authors I enjoyed. She has a strong following, and I feel she has earned it. Her writing is consistent, engrossing, and straightforward. I've enjoyed all of her novels and look forward to more. Haven feels left out. Her older sister is getting married and thereby getting all of the attention. She wonders why Ashley didn't stay with her first boyfriend, Sumner; Haven really looked up to him. Haven's father has also gotten married, this time to a younger woman. Being so much taller than her peers, fifteen-year-old Haven feels awkward in her body. Between preparations for Ashley's wedding and working her first job at a shoe store, Haven is less than thrilled with her summer. That Summer, Haven teeters and tumbles, anxious to no longer be thought of a little girl, yet hesitant to grow up. She is one of Dessen's youngest protagonists. I hesitate to use the word immature because that has such a negative connotation. I only want to relay Haven's youth and inexperience, which is conveyed well in Dessen's straightforward writing. Haven is a sweet girl, and That Summer, a sweet story. Most friendships have some kind of balance, some give-and-take, but this usually goes unnoticed until something upsets that balance. Tragedies suddenly make things shift and scatter. In Someone Like You, Scarlett's boyfriend is killed in an accident. Shortly thereafter, Scarlett confides in Halley that she is pregnant. Now it's Halley's turn to be there for Scarlett, to be the strong one. Within all of the chaos emerges another boy, but this one has his sights set on Halley. Things keep changing, and Halley's not sure she can keep up with everything. During her fifteenth...