I Hate Spinnerbait!

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

I challenge you to read this book.  Ok, so only if you have read the book would you understand my sentence about taking a challenge.  I enjoy Dessen’s books so much.  Each character is absolutely wonderful.  She makes each story that I’ve read stand out and is wonderfully different yet has strains of the same within each of her books.

This Lullaby is about a girl named Remy who has one summer before she goes off and starts her new and very own life now that she has graduated high school.  She has big plans, to be single and have fun with her friends and live it up, while trying to be a better person.  But of course, the boy of our book fantasy dreams walks in and messes all of it up.  The only problem is that Remy likes it and she loves hanging out with Dexter, she just doesn’t understand where all of these new found feelings are coming from since it’s not like Remy to get attached and she also doesn’t date boys in bands.

I like the Beetles theme that kept popping up.  First with the drummer’s nick name in the first 8 or so chapters was Ringo in Remy’s mind and then when Remy’s mom was finishing her novel she played the Beetle’s loud and proud.     

This is not my favorite Dessen novel thus far.  It was sweet and I did like the theme of the Lullaby throughout the novel.  Remy’s character was a little different from other Dessen characters.  She had this hard façade and she always called herself a hard cold B. Actually out of all the novels I’ve read of hers, she uses a lot more language and gives the persona of an easy or slutty character. 

I only gave this book 3 stars on Good Reads because I didn’t enjoy the ending to the book.  I like to read at least a chapter of the love interests to be together and see them together.  We got 2 sentences of, “I’ll see you after we have all these gigs.” 

It’s a story of bad girl meets good guy and when the bad girl stays true to character she ruins it all.  This book is not a waste of time but Dessen has better books out there, enjoy them all!  Keep Reading my Friends!

Can you Ride a Bike?

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

This is my first Dessen book to read.  I listened to one other and enjoyed it a lot so I put away in the back of my mind to keep my eye out for others.  Well low and behold I found them all at 2^nd and Charles and so I picked up Along for the Ride. 

Dessen has a great way of introducing characters that are easy to read and easier to like.  Auden was a strange bird, I’m not going to lie (why would I?  It’s my blog).  Weirdness aside I cheered her on the entire book.  I wanted her to be happy and was upset when she was upset.  Her mom was very strange as well and I could see why she wasn’t easy to get along with.  Eli was a great male character and I was happy that he had so many secrets for us to find out during the course of the book.  I thought it was funny that she made out with his brother the first night she arrived at the beach, but as we got to know her, we realized that was not her personality at all.

What I didn’t like.  Her dad.  He was written well, but a selfish pig.  I’m glad he had a little salvation at the end.  I would have told him off the first time I saw him ignoring his family.  Boom.

I have ordered a few more of her books off of Paperbackswap.com and look forward to reading them.  They are fun, easy reads that don’t take a lot of time, but are highly entertaining and are especially great when you don’t want to start a series.  Dessen has a way of developing intriguing characters that are easy to read.

Thanks for stopping by!  Keep reading my friends!

Yay for Good Guys in Good Books!

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen

Identity Crisis.  McLean doesn’t know who to be in her new town with her dad.  Her parents divorced two years ago and have been having custody battles and things have not been going well between McLean and her mom since she left McLean’s dad for another man.  McLean’s dad, Gus Sweet is a restaurant consultant and he goes where his boss moves him, to the dying restaurants of the company his boss owns.  McLean knows by the food how long they are going to be in a new location.  Since she’s been in 4 new towns in the last two years, she’s got pretty good at packing up her life and starting over.  The starting over has been starting with a different persona as well.  From the Cheerleader to the Drama Queen, from changing her name to Lizbet to Beth, in her new town she doesn’t know who she will be, until she realizes that sometimes a move can become permanent in your heart.  Of course it doesn’t hurt to get to know the boy next door Dave, maybe he can help her find her true identity.

I have never read a Sarah Desson book before.  I still haven’t “read” her books, I listened to this one on my commute to work.  I loved it.  I can’t wait to actually read one now.  Her characters are perfect.  They each have a unique quirk to them and personality.  I loved McLean, she was a great POV character and her confusion and fear and confidence were excellent.  I loved Dave.  He was such a great hero, literally the boy next door and so much fun to read about.  Anytime he was in the picture I knew it was going to be a great interaction.  He pulled out the real McLean from just being a great guy. 

I highly recommend this book.  If you don’t have time to read it, I suggest listening to it, at the very least.  I have no idea if the grammar was good of if there were mistakes, you can’t quite catch things like that when you are stuck in traffic, but like I said before, the characters were amazing and fun and I didn’t want to the book to end. 

I hope to read a Desson book very soon!  Keep Reading my Friends!