Along for the Ride Review

4Q 4P MS

As an avid Sarah Dessen reader in high school that is now trying to catch up on the books I missed since then, this book was like a flashback.

Though all vaguely similar in style, Sarah Dessen creates real characters that one can relate to. Reading Along for the Ride brought back the same feelings I had when I was younger and reading The Truth About Forever, and This Lullaby, or any of her other books.

This title follows Auden during the summer between high school and college. A girl that was treated like an adult since she was a small child, she missed out on having fun during the summer her entire life. So it makes sense that this summer she buys all the textbooks for her first semester of college and plans to read through them to get a jump start on the coming semester. However, the one thing that changes is her location - opting to visit her father, step mother, and new baby sister Thisbe at their beach town home (the very same beach town that many other of Sarah Dessen's books take place in - various characters from all her novels make quick appearances in others, though never mentioned by name fans of Dessen will easily spot them). While here she ends up working in her step mother's very girly boutique, and slowly becoming friends with the other girls that work there. Additionally she learns to ride a bike with the help of some of her new friends, though initially it may have been to impress a boy that she pushed away out of habit, it ends up being what finally allows her to realize that she doesn't have to follow the path expected of her, that she can make her own decisions.

Formulaic? Yes. A girl that learns something about her self to overcome a problem? Yes. That describes Dessen's novels quite well. However, fans of Dessen will not care, as this is what we expect from her books - a well thought out story that is never exactly the same as the previous, that we can relate to, or learn something from in the form of how to be ourselves.

Fans of Sarah Dessen will enjoy Along for the Ride.