Not Oprah's Book Club: Along for the Ride
<object width="425" height="344"></object> Talking about this book today. Transcript after the jump! Today I'll be talking about Along for the Ride, a new book by Sarah Dessen. It just came out last week and it's a YA fiction novel. I've actually been reading Sarah Dessen's books since high school, when she actually came and did a reading at my high school public library in Chapel Hill NC. It turns out Sarah is also from Chapel Hill and actually went to my high school. She's actually since written 8 books and has been really really successful. This book was actually a NY Times bestseller last week, and two of her books were made into a Mandy Moore movie, How to Deal, a few years ago. I really like her books. I'm really into young adult fiction and like getting to talk about it. This book is about a young girl named Auden who is spending her summer with her father in a beach town in NC, Colby. Her parents are divorced, her mom is an academic, an overachieving academic type. Auden is this overachieving really smart intellectual type who has spent most of her high school dedicated to her books and has grown up too fast seemingly because of her parent's divorce. So Auden is spending her summer before college in Colby with her father, her stepmother and her new half-sister who has just been born. So that's where the book places us. It's a really great story of self-discovery and Auden finding more about her social side. It's a sweet story and I really enjoyed it. I really like all of Sarah's books, I've read all 9 of them. They all feature really strong, independent and dynamic female protagonists and I really appreciate that. They're good role models for young girls. Sarah also does a good job of tackling tough issues, like in this book divorce, in others intimate partner violence, teen pregnancy. All sorts of different hard issues and I appreciate that she takes them on and makes them accessible. My own main criticism about her books is that all of her characters have been straight (at least that I can remember). I'd be really excited to see a character who was struggling with issues of sexuality. Also almost all of her characters have been white. So Sarah, if you're watching this, I'd love to see some more diversity in your upcoming books. The only other thing that has been a criticism for me of her books is that the main character's path to self-discovery always includes a guy, a love interest. While he's not the knight in shining armour who comes in to save the day, he is involved her process. I've been a little disappointed to see that plot line reoccur. But all in all I really like her books. If you've read Along for the Ride, leave your thoughts in comments! You can buy the book here, check out Sarah's livejournal here and see her other books here!
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