STORY | Suffering from insomnia, Auden has more than one big thing on her mind. This includes the implosion of her family and her parents’ respective new lives. Her mother has more than one fling, the latest with a graduate student, and her dad remarries and has a new baby. Still Auden heads to her fathers for the summer and makes plans to stay with him and Heidi for the summer.
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🚲 ‘ALONG FOR THE RIDE’: A CLASSIC YOUNG ADULT CONTEMPORY READ 🚲 Review of the 2009 Sarah Dessen novel. #Books #YALit #YABooks #YoungAdult #BookReview #BookReviews Click To TweetTrouble is, very little of Auden’s questions find answers. She comes to realize that the new people in her life may not be so bad, and the people she calls parent have lessons to learn. Making her questions more plentiful is Eli, the boy who she may have a few things in common with.
REVIEW | This is one of those books I did start to read a long time ago and never finished throughout my ongoing I’m-not-reading period. But I did pick it up again so that I could close the chapter on this one. The novel is also, much to even my surprise, my first novel by Sarah Dessen. Despite loving the contemporary genre and novelists like Kasie West, she’s not an author I read. I even unhauled several of her books but then when Along for the Ride was adapted, reading the book seemed like a good thing to do.
The story is typical young adult summertime read. It has surprising moments despite its predictability. There’s one character we like more than we expect and another some readers have big problems with. I understand why, and that the author also glosses over change or betterment. The story doesn’t give us much on page to convince us of change, yet this is fiction and if we want to say there’s change, there is.
I think what I’m more disappointed in was the romance. I suppose I thought there’d be more development there than there is. Not an all-time favorite light-hearted read, Along for the Ride is still a nice and easy read, especially if you’re looking for something simple to read poolside.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Author: Sarah Dessen
Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
Source: Bought
Publication Date: 2009
Genre: Fiction; Young Adult, Contemporary Romance
Rating: ★★★
Add the Book: Goodreads
Content: in full transparency, I didn’t read this all at once so I cannot remember all the possibly bothersome content. The book may contains some profanity, but nothing in excess. There is one scene where a girl and boy, after one party flirtation, sneak off into the dunes to have sex… or fool around. It’s not totally clear which it is. I’m assuming they have sex, based on her memories of the night. There’s plenty of discussion about divorce and separation. The book would be rated PG-13 but compared to today’s fiction, it’s relatively clean.