Books #49-52: Sarah Dessen read-a-thon

Fast Facts:

Books: What Happened to Goodbye; The Truth About Forever; Just Listen; Lock and Key—all by Sarah Dessen

Genre/Audience: Teen romance

Worth the read?: Sure, but maybe don’t read them all in a row like I did…

We interrupt regularly scheduled programming for this important announcement: I reached my 50 book goal in the year of 2018! Yay! Go me! Party! And now, back to blogging about books…

I had never read a Sarah Dessen book before my Thanksgiving break when, for some unknown reason, I decided it was a good idea to read four of them consecutively. Well, to be honest, the reason is simple: I was missing Peter Kavinsky and the To All the Boys books, so I thought surely Sarah Dessen was a good substitute for my literary loneliness. To be fair, I was right. But I was also crazy for thinking four in a row was a good idea.

“What happened to goodbye”

Book one, What Happened to Goodbye, was great. I enjoyed the characters, the plot, and the book’s climax. However, the resolution was forced and, admittedly, not good—it was definitely the kind of resolution meant to please the reader and not to actually be realistic. But I was willing to forgive the ending, because, after all, it was an ending that left me saying “awwwwww!” I think I’d rate this one a 7/10.

“the truth about forever”

Book two, The Truth About Forever, was even better. I loved, loved, loved the male lead in this one. The ending wasn’t as forced, either, which was nice. I’m sure that I’ll read this book again, which is probably the only one of the four that I can say this for.

But there were some similarities between this book and the one previous, such as the troubled male teen trope (both had been arrested), the protagonist with family problems (forgivable, because don’t we all?), and that the stories took place in the same fictional town. I was curious if these things would become patterns, but since I was admittedly crushing on brooding artist Wes, I had no issues pretending these things didn’t exist. I’d give this book an 8.5/10.

“just listen”

By book three, Just Listen, I was desperate for more sappy teenage love (why am I this person?!).But the pattern was confirmed: male lead, formerly having been arrested, meets and falls in love with a girl struggling through family problems, and the two ride off into the sunset together in the same town as the last two couples.

That’s a whole lot of deep and meaningful teenage love in one town! The ending of this one was possibly my favorite of the three, as it was clever and endearing. I’d give this one another 7/10.

“Lock and key”

Lock and Key¸ no doubt the final Dessen book I’ll read for some time, was nothing more than a mistake on my part. I bought it on my Kindle app (so no photo), and this is the only one I bought with my own money. The plot pattern was broken ever so slightly here, but remained largely intact—and I couldn’t help but be annoyed by the formulaic stock plotline. As a result, my feelings for Lock and Key are probably unfairly skewed. I’d rate it 6/10.

Dessen delivers stylistically well-written books with generally dynamic characters, but the stories, when seen side-by-side, are undistinguishable. Even writing this post, I have struggled remembering which book was which, and I’ve already forgotten all of the characters’ names except for Wes and Macy from The Truth About Forever.  I wouldn’t have discovered the repetitive plot features so soon if I hadn’t missed Jenny Han’s Peter Kavinsky so dang much. Way to go, Nikki. Way to go.

worth the read?

I wouldn’t not recommend Sarah Dessen’s books, as I generally enjoyed them and much of what annoyed me probably doesn’t bother other readers, but for those who may be picky and persnickety like me, I’d simply offer the warning not to read them so close together and not to think too much about the repetitive formula the plots follow. In all fairness to Dessen, the stories were not cookie-cutter to the extent that Nicholas Sparks novels are, and there was a lot of plot variation beyond the patterns I pointed out. But the patterns, oh the patterns. I don’t do well with patterns/repetition in any realm of life (ask me about waking up in the middle of the night to my dad playing the same 4 chords over and over again on the guitar), so this is less about Sarah Dessen and more about me.

I’m not mad that I read these books. They did exactly what I wanted them to without much pain or toil. I’ll read more of her books in the future, but probably not in the next six months.

I’m almost caught up on my 2018 book blogs—only two books remain!

Nikki