This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

Author: Sarah Dessen

Reading level: Young Adult

Publisher: Puffin Books

Rated 9/10

Raised by a mother who's had five husbands, eighteen-year-old Remy believes in short-term, no-commitment relationships until she meets Dexter, a rock band musician.

MY REVIEW
This is a good book, this is the 5th book I have read by Sarah Dessen and she amazes me with every book. Her books are filled with love, heartbreak, and realness that most other books never seem to possess. I'm not gonna lie Remy got on my nerves a lot with how she treated people but Dexter made the book what it was for me and worth reading. I'm sure most of us dream of a guy like Dexter :). Remy has just graduated from high school and plans to get as far away from her present life as possible. All Remy's life she has never seen true love, her mother marries someone and divorces not too long after, and has started on her fifth marriage to Don. It doesn't help that all she has left of her own father is the song he wrote for her that says he let her down. Remy goes through guys quickly and calls them her seasonal boyfriends, she even has a routine on how to dump them.Then one day she meets Dexter and he pursues her with a passion. When she finally gives in she sees that he's different than any other guy she has ever dated, and she don't know quite how to handle it.

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

Author: Sarah Dessen

Reading level: Young Adult

Publisher: Speak

Rated 9/10 

After her older sister runs away, sixteen-year-old Caitlin decides that she needs to make a major change in her own life and begins an abusive relationship with a boy who is mysterious, brilliant, and dangerous

MY REVIEW
I liked this book. It kinda makes you think and look twice at things. The story starts out with it being Caitlin's sixteenth birthday and her waking up to find her older sister Cass(who is supposed to be starting Yale soon) has just up and ran away with her boyfriend Adam to get away from the pressure and expectations her life gave her to be perfect. Caitlin soon fills the void her sister has left behind by dating Rogerson who she met one night at a carwash. Their relationship is perfect at first until he starts abusing her. Read the book to find out what happens but like I have said about Sarah Dessen she doesn't sugarcoat her characters and I give her respect for the realness of them. I know life can be like the stories she writes and that's what makes her books so good to read.

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

Author:  Sarah Dessen

Reading level: Young Adult

Publisher: Speak

Rated 9/10

When Annabel, the youngest of three beautiful sisters, has a bitter falling out with her best friend—the popular and exciting Sophie—she suddenly finds herself isolated and friendless. but then she meets owen—a loner, passionate about music and his weekly radio show, and always determined to tell the truth. And when they develop a friendship, Annabel is not only introduced to new music but is encouraged to listen to her own inner voice. with owen’s help, can Annabel find the courage to speak out about what exactly happened the night her friendship with Sophie came to a screeching halt?

MY REVIEW
I really liked this book. This is the third book I have read by Sarah Dessen now and I must admit I'm a fan and want to read more(she has written a lot of books and I happen to be reading another one next) She's one of those authors that don't sugarcoat family,friends, and life. Her books are't like the perfect families you see on a lot of TV shows and movies. Of course there is love in the families she writes about but the families are far from being perfect and usually go through something painful and emotional,and that's what I like the most is the realness. This book is about Annabel Greene who is the youngest of 3 sisters and who models and does commercials. She has a falling out with her bestfriend Sophie(major witch-w+b) who thinks she cheated with her boyfriend Will Cash(she really doesn't know the half of it though) and suddenly goes back to school with no friends and people gossiping about her.Meanwhile at home her second oldest sister(Whitney) is has a eating disorder that she is trying to overcome with the help of her family. Annabel suddenly becomes good friends with the school loner and music obsessed Owen Armstrong. He helps her with bringing the truth out she so desperately tries to hide from everyone about what happened before school began. I totally think people should read this book(I also love the fact that Sarah Dessen doesn't make her books mainly about romance either but more about the problems her characters are going through)

That Summer by Sarah Dessen

Author: Sarah Dessen

Reading level: Young Adult

Publisher: Viking Juvenile

Rated 8/10

                                                                                   

For fifteen-year-old Haven, life is changing too quickly. She's nearly six feet tall, her father is getting remarried, and her sister, the always perfect Ashley, is planning a wedding of her own. Haven wishes things could just go back to the way they were. Then an old boyfriend of Ashley's reenters the picture, and through him, Haven sees the past for what it really was, and comes to grips with the future.

MY REVIEW
I liked this book. It's about 15 year old Haven who's freakishly tall at almost 6 feet and is having a lot of family issues.Her mom and dad are divorced and it's summertime and she attends her father's wedding to the local weather girl that her mom calls the weather pet(who she finds out a month later is pregnant) She has to deal with her bratty older sister(Ashley) who is also getting married that summer.She meets up again with her sister's exboyfriend Sumner(who happens to be her favorite of all her sister's boyfriends) and thinks he's the only one who can make her feel like her life is normal. She goes back in her mind to the summer that her sister and Sumner were together and her life seemed happier. Haven finds herself and learns a few life lessons that summer!

Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen

Author: Sarah Dessen

Reading level: Young Adult

Publisher: Puffin Books

Rated 9/10

Dessen's realistic portrayal of contemporary teens and their moral challenges breathes fresh life into well-worn themes of rebellion and first love. Halley has always been close to her mother, a therapist who publishes books about adolescent behavior. But the summer before her junior year of high school, Halley begins cutting the umbilical cord. She and her best friend, Scarlett, start hanging out with Ginny Tabor ("a cheerleader with a wild streak a mile wide and a reputation among the football team for more than her cheers and famous midair splits"); Halley dumps her nerdy boyfriend (the son of her mother's best friend) and becomes involved with reckless Macon, a boy her parents have forbidden her to see. Then Scarlett discovers she is pregnant two months after her boyfriend Michael is killed in a motorcycle accident. Walking a line between childhood and adulthood, the two girls turn to each other instead of their families for support. Together they explore the meaning of love, sex and responsibility. This romance/coming-of-age story is not as tightly written as Dessen's debut, That Summer; it suffers from some scenes reminiscent of soap opera and from flat presentations of almost all the adult characters. But Dessen's fully developed characterizations of charismatic teens, particularly the rebel-without-a-cause-type Macon, are sure to attract readersespecially those who, like Halley, have felt the urge to take a walk on the wild side.

MY REVIEW
Good book I liked it a lot. The story is told through 15 year old Halley's eyes about the summer she grew away from her mom and the following year when she spends learning about life and love. Halley's best friend Scarlet(their friendship reminds in a way of my friendship with my best friend Rachel) has a terrible tragedy happen when the boy she falls in love with that summer dies in a motorcyle accident and she finds out not long afterward that she's pregnant by him. Halley also finds her first love in a trouble making guy named Macon. She has terrible fights with her mother all throughout the book. She compares times with her mother to before and after the trip to the Grand Canyon. Before they were like best friends and after they were like mortal enemies. She learns about the pressures we all faced or will face while being a teenager.Some of them good and others not so good.Overall I really liked it and would defiantly read it again. It was something different than what I usually read and what I'm used to. It helped inspire the movie How To Deal with Mandy Moore in it along with the other book I'm reading next written by Sarah Dressen.