This was the novel written by Sarah Dessen. It took me 9 solid days to finish this book. I know it was too slow of me to read a novel but I had to say that sometimes I have this weird act of absorbing every single word of what I’m reading. I’m too immense doing something like that I forgot how to put myself inside the story.
The very first thing I noticed about the book was the fact that it was too girly. The moment I got to first 50 pages, I knew straight men couldn’t relate much to the contents of the book unless they had an interest of learning women. Of course, Sarah Dessen was a lady and that she wrote like a lady but what I was saying was it seemed like her market was ladies particularly young adults. To me, I enjoyed the book. It was somehow relatable since I was gay.
What I liked the most about the book was that even though the writer would let you expect upfront it was all about love story between two teenagers, you would be greatly surprised once you started reading because the book covered a lot of aspects aside from romance. I felt happy while reading because things about families and friendships were also included inside the book, which for all we know, two of the most valuable things in life. The family was not perfect, the topic of divorce had few appearances on the book so Sarah Dessen presented two households. The friendship was the usual teenage friendships. The group consisted of too many different personalities.
The point of view of the story was first person. The main character, which of course a girl, was the only voice you could hear. I fell in love with the main character immediately because although she was a teenager, she was not the usual type you could see on the party getting drunk and did a lot of stupid nonsense it life. In short, she was an academic achiever. She was always hard on herself in order to attain whatever goal she had in her life. She inherited this kind of mentality to her mom, which was on the later part of the story she somehow regretted. Also, she never had real girl friends. She was always got out of place whenever she was being invited to group of girls so she realized it was better to stay away from them. She was kind of lonely on the story until she went for a vacation with her dad. That was the time she learned ways how to deal with girls and the idea of friendships were then tackled greatly at the novel.
Among the supporting characters, my favorite was Leah. She was this kind of girl who seemed to only love two things in the world — guy and party. As usual, she wasn’t all that emotional and serious about life, which I like. The way she gave comments never failed to make me burst into laughter. She might seemed like someone who just goes with the flow mostly but once she gave a piece of advice, it was perfection. Overall, she was funny and adorable and I know surely typical teenage girls will love her character.
The setting of the story was summer. Sarah Dessen was famous on using that kind of season because she admitted it was her favorite part of the year. The story took place between after Highschool and before College. I have to say that the setting was just perfectly right. I know based on my experience that it was the particular moment of one’s life when someone could have major changes. I remembered how I used to condition myself physically and emotionally when I was in that kind of situation, how excited I was that in few months my life would change instantly. Speaking of changes, there was also part of the book where the main character and her mom argued whether people change or not. At some point in the book, the idea of “if people change” was occasionally being presented. In the resolution part, it was proven that people do but some part of them remain intact. Like what happened to the main character. How she transformed in just a span of summer from being a too geeky and too self-isolated to being sociable
Overall, I liked how Sarah Dessen presented the flow of the story. It was a nice book to read during vacation so I recommend it. I gave the book an 8 out of 10.
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