Books and Sensibility

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Contemporary YA

Audio Book Review: Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott

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  • Release Date: March 24th 2009
  • Pages: 217
  • Audiobook Length: 5 hours 23 minutes
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Publisher: Simon Pulse

Synopsis: Everyone thinks their parents are embarrassing, but Hannah knows she’s got them all beat. Her dad made a fortune showcasing photos of pretty girls and his party lifestyle all over the Internet, and her mom was once one of her dad’s girlfriends and is now the star of her own website. After getting the wrong kind of attention for way too long, Hannah has mastered the art of staying under the radar…and that’s just how she likes it.

And you think you have parent issues.

Something, Maybe is the story of Hannah, a girl who wants nothing more than to go through life and high school unnoticed. Well, except by her hipster co-worker Josh. Anonymity isn’t easy for Hannah as her estranged senior citizen father is the eccentric owner of a popular softcore porn website and her mother is a former model who talks to a camera in lingerie for a living. When Hannah’s Dad tries to bring her back into his life nothing is ever the same. Hannah learns about trust and discovering what love truly is

I really enjoyed this story, it’s a  light, romantic coming of age teen story and it’s short at just over 200 pages. I love Scott’s ability to tell a complete story in only a few pages. Something about Scott’s writing is so honest and feels genuine.

The audiobook is narrated by Ellen Grafton, and I loved her voice for Hannah. It has this great youthful quality, I can’t put my finger on who she sounds like it’s kind of like Ellen Page. She does great male voices as well.

My favorite part of this story had to be Hannah’s crush on Josh because from page one I think everyone knows he is a pretentious idiot, but Hanna is so entrhalled by this crush she just can’t see it. Josh carries around thick books so people can see he reads “heavy stuff”, claims to care about the environment and the world by going to coffee shops and talking about change instead of actually doing it. I just thought Hannah’s willingness to overlook his faults in the name of a crush was so true to what high school is like.

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Summer of Sarah Dessen : Along For The Ride

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“People don’t change. If anything, you get more set in your ways as you get older, not less”

– Sarah Dessen, Along For The Ride

Synopsis : 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.

I’ve had this audiobook for at least 3 years, so when I started commuting this was on of the first audiobooks I  “read”.

Going into Along for the Ride I was excited to read another Dessen novel that takes place in Colby, NC. The same small beachside town town as Keeping The Moon.

Growing up in the world of academia Auden West is book smart,  motivated, intelligent; but more importantly, she is alone and she likes it that way. . . or so she thinks. The summer before college Auden takes her first big risk and spends the summer with her dad and new stepmother in  Colby, NC in search of The Best of Times, but she finds so much more.

Dessen is the queen of Manic Pixie dream guys romance,  but the romance isn’t the main story happening in Colby, NC.  What really stuck out for me in Along For The Ride were the friendships, families and characters.

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Summer of Sarah Dessen : Just Listen

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“Silence is so freaking loud.” 

– Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

                   

Synopsis: 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.

Note: This week Kat is posting a re-post of Just Listen for Summer of Sarah Dessen

So, this is the first Sarah Dessen novel I’ve read in a few years and I was nervous. I’ve always raved about her writing and I wondered if her writing was nearly as good as I remember. Would I still enjoy it?  The answer is yes.

Just Listen follows the story of Annabel Greene, a girl who is trying to keep up the facade of a perfect life when in reality her friendships and family relationships are crumbling around her. When she starts to sit next to Owen Armstrong at lunch, that all slowly changes.


 Just Listen is a beautifully crafted novel and  I adore it on so many levels. This is a book not only about a girl and her coming-of-age story, but also one about ideas. Powerful and brilliant ideas.

 

What Dessen does so well is she allows her characters to tell their own stories. They characters know (or at least think they know) themselves so well that the storytelling feels completely organic.

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Summer of Sarah Dessen : The Truth About Forever

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A long hot summer. That’s what Macy has to look forward to while her boyfriend, Jason, is away at Brain Camp. Days will be spent at a boring job in the library, evenings will be filled with vocabulary drills for the SATs, and spare time will be passed with her mother, the two of them sharing a silent grief at the traumatic loss of Macy’s father.
But sometimes unexpected things can happen. . . As Macy ventures out of her shell, she begins to wonder, Is it really better to be safe than sorry

Macy Queen’s boyfriend  is the smart and driven Jason Talbot. Macy Queen’s sister had the most beautiful wedding at the Lakeview Inn. Macy Queen’s mother is the businesswoman behind the Wildflower Ridge subdivision.

But what Macy Queen is most know for is watching her father die.

There on the sidewalk as Macy’s father slips away so does life as she knew it . Now nothing but perfection, studying and order will do for her and her now smaller family. This summer is shaping up to be just that; until the chaos that is Wish Catering barrels into her life. Crab cakes, meatballs, a game of Truth and all.

Wish Catering is–in one word–  chaos. Run by the frazzled and very pregnant owner Delia; along with boy-crazy Kristy, monotone Monica, Bert and the mysteriously artistic Wes.

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When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle

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“What if the greatest love story ever told was the wrong one?” 

― Rebecca Serle, When You Were Mine

  • Release Date: May 1st  2012
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Pages: 334
  • Publisher: Simon Pulse


Synopsis: What’s in a name, Shakespeare? I’ll tell you: Everything.
Rosaline knows that she and Rob are destined to be together. Rose has been waiting for years for Rob to kiss her—and when he finally does, it’s perfect. But then Juliet moves back to town. Juliet, who used to be Rose’s best friend. Juliet, who now inexplicably hates her. Juliet, who is gorgeous, vindictive, and a little bit crazy… and who has set her sights on Rob. He doesn’t even stand a chance.

So, I love the concept of this novel. A modern re-telling of Romeo and Juliet, but from the perspective of Rosaline. I remember studying Romeo and Juliet in high school and when our teacher was talking about Rosaline I remember thinking, wait what ? There was a girl Romeo liked before Juliet ? Roalisne is an unseen  character in the play so Serle had a lot to play with in developing her.

The character of Rosaline Caplet in this book was a blurry character to me, she didn’t seem to have any shape. She just existed, there was nothing special about her and I couldn’t get a feel for her personality. She does gain some definition through the book with her relationship with the character Len, but I just could not connect with her.

There seems to be two schools of reviewers who have read this; those who loved Rose’s  friends and others who don’t. I found Charlie and Olivia to be annoying girls obsessed with boys and popularity. They are also kind of the mean girls I didn’t understand why they were friends with Rose, who seems nothing like them. It seems like in real life they would have drifted apart.

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Summer of Sarah Dessen : This Lullaby

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“Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour, could make all the difference. So much hanging on just these things, tiny increments that together build a life. Like words build a story, and what had Ted said? One word can change the entire world.”

― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby

  • Release Date: March 27th 2002
  • Page Number: 345
  • Genre: Contemporary
  • Publisher: Speak

Synopsis: 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?

Remy Starr is  better, she swears. 

She doesn’t sleep around anymore, she doesn’t smoke nearly as much and , most importantly  her eyes are set on Stanford in the fall. The only thing standing in her way ?  The summer. This will be the summer the girl who thinks she knows everything gets a lesson in love, the Potato Opus and what one summer can do.

Unlike Dessen’s previous novels Remy is not a “good girl”. Remy is not a quiet introspective character. She isn’t best friends with the  screwed-up rebellious girl, she IS that girl. 

The love interest Dexter, provides a nice foil to the extremely “Type A” Remy. He is the spastic, hyper lead singer in the band, Truth Squad. When this group of essentially “lost boys” rolls into town with nothing but a white van and Dexter’s dog, Monkey, things on Remy’s side of town is never the same.
After reading Dessen’s novels in publication order, I think This Lullaby  is a turning point in Dessen’s novels. It combines the friendships, eccentric parents and quirky characters of her first three novels, with the summer time setting of Keeping The Moon. It also plays up romance and love much more than her previous novels…

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