Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

Publisher:  Viking, 2009
Pages:  382
Source:  My shelves
Genre:  Young Adult Realistic Fiction/Romance

Auden is a very focused, self-motivated teen with a sleeping problem.  The sleeping problem started about the time her parents started fighting.  Now everything seems to be crashing down around her as her parents divorce.  Sarah decides before she starts college she will stay with her dad and try to get close to him.  This is not exactly what is going to happen.  She moves in with her dad, stepmother and new step-sister.  She finds that she is pretty much on her own. That is until she hooks up with another night person like herself, Eli.
Eli becomes her first boyfriend and shows her what she has been missing.  She never realized how much of life had passed her by because she was focused on one thing, her studies.

Before I start getting hate mail let me explain that I understand what can happen when you become too focused on one thing.  I was like a backward person for a long time.  Even after I got married to my first husband I was still going to school and then coming home to take care of the kids and then doing homework and then I would catch 2 - 3 hours of sleep.  I was pretty much a loner.  Then things changed when I remarried.  My second husband makes sure he takes away my books occasionally and makes me get out of my comfort zone to live for a while.  I hate to think where Auden would have ended up if she had not found Eli.  I'm not a huge fan of "chick lit" but I would definitely read another Sarah Dessen book.  The thanks for this must go to former student Kadijah who asked me to buy the book so she could read it.  I'm glad she then recommended it to me.  See, even teachers can learn from students.

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