Just listen by Sarah Dessen: Summer of Sarah

With nearly every author, there’s one book they write that is always going to be my favorite. It may be cliche, but Pride and Prejudice is the Austen novel I re-read when I need the literary equivalent of chicken soup. L.M. Montgomery’s Emily books–about a girl who wanted to be a writer– inspired my childhood imagination more than Anne of Green Gables. I think that no matter how much you love an author’s entire compendium, there’s going to be that one you connect with most.

With Sarah Dessen, I don’t think she’ll ever write anything that tops (for me as a reader) Just Listen.

In case you don’t know, the story is about Annabel, who was part of the in crowd, but after the events of a party at the end of the previous school year has been ostracized. Everyone is gossiping about her. Only Annabel and one other person really knows what happened that night, and she’s not talking. What she is doing is trying to find a different life for herself, one that might include reconnecting with a friend she wronged in the past, a bad boy who is sweeter than he seems, and forging better relationships with her parents and sisters.

There’s a great, swoony romance in this book; it’s probably my favorite of Dessen’s romances. But what I loved more was the way that Annabel learned to redefine strength throughout the story. At the beginning of the book, she saw her mother (who battled severe depression when Annabel’s grandmother died) and her sister (who is battling an eating disorder and pissed off at the world) as weak. I loved how she discovered that she could lean on both of them, and that what she’d seen as weaknesses were victories they had won.

This past May, Sarah Dessen came to Rochester, NY for their Teen Book Festival. Since I had volunteered for this blog assignment, I thought it good sense to go.* I was not surprised to find Sarah the real-life version of her Twitter self, but it was so much fun to watch her and Gayle Forman together. Each spent half her time talking about how great the other’s books were, and it was a lot like eavesdropping as two good friends chatted about books.

I admired Sarah’s graciousness to every person I saw her with in her signing line. It was SO long, and most of the kids had multiple books. She actually thanked me for wanting a picture, because it gave her hand a break for a few seconds! My only irritation with the event was that I’d lent my copy of Just Listen to a friend (curse my generosity!) so I had to get another book signed.

This post is part of Penguin Books’ Summer of Sarah, in celebration of the release of her twelfth book (!) Saint Anything. I enjoyed that one, too, but if you’re going to read just one, Just Listen is my pick.

Pick up Just Listen today!

_{*Yeah, I would have gone anyway. I was all like: Yay! A book signing near me, and an event in Upstate, not the city! I’ll get to meet Katie McGarry, and Ally Condie, and Sarah Dessen and maybe Gayle Forman! (Meeting Gayle Forman didn’t end up happening as I ran out of time due to epic signing lines.)}