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.
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