Oops, I did it again.../Along For The Ride

Again, I forgot to review. So here is a review of a book that's sort-of new (yeah, you'll have to expect that:)

Along for the Ride

by Sarah Dessen

(I actually wrote this review upon reading the book, but I forgot to post it.)

High school is finally over, and the extremely studious Auden is facing three blank calendar pages before she starts at the prestigious Defriese University. What to do? In an unusual turn of events, she decides to spend the summer with her father, his new wife, and her new baby sister in Colby, a town by the beach. She makes several critical mistakes upon her arrival, most notably hooking up with a random guy and then running into his girlfriend the next morning. This does nothing to help her reputation, by the way. A little while later, she gets a job at her stepmother's boutique. The other girls who work there attempt to interact with her, but believing that they are all just "fluffy and insubstantial," Auden mostly ignores them. Soon enough, however, she finds herself drawn to a strange boy with a bicycle who encourages her to relive her lost childhood. In doing so, she discovers that "being a girl could be about interest rates and skinny jeans, riding bikes and wearing pink. Not about any one thing, but everything."

I've read several of Sarah Dessen's books, and by far this is one of her best. She uses her gifts of pathos and initiative to great affect to create another story that no one will want to end. (I certainly didn't.)

Rating: 9

383p

Viking Juvenile

$19.99

buy here (Amazon.com)

or here (Barnes and Noble.com)