Someone Like You

Rating:
Summary: BEST Sarah Dessen book
Review: Sarah Dessen is my favourite author of all time and this is my absolute FAVOURITE book of all time by her! I really felt as if I could relate to all the characters, as I feel about all of Sarah's books. I love Sarah as an author because she makes her books seem so REAL. This book is amazing, READ IT!

Rating:
Summary: 7th grader- best book ever.
Review: Sarah Dessen's "Someone Like You" is often hailed as her best novel, and it's not very hard to see why. It is one of the most captivating, engrossing books I've read - and a young adult novel, no less.

On the surface, nothing about the story looks to have any particular distinction from the hordes of other YA novels out there - the quiet, "boring" girl is the central character; her popular, interesting best friend is the main supporting character; the former's parents don't understand her; she has a crush on a rebel-without-a-cause-type, etc., etc. Add a teen pregnancy and token tertiary cheerleader characters to boot.

Yet there is something different about this story, and I've been trying for some time to put my finger on what it is. I think it lies in the voice that narrates it. Halley, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that she is not especially unusual, is immediately sympathetic. Readers are going to want to know what happens to her, and to her friend Scarlett, and everyone else in the story.

As with all the Dessen books I've read, there is a well-developed cast of supporting characters - one of the most notable being Halley's mother, Julie, a child psychologist who doesn't know how to deal with her own daughter. The story of their bond and how it metamorphoses over time is one of the most interesting secondary themes in this story, as is that of the relationship between Halley and her aforementioned love interest, Macon Faulkner.

As the story continues and readers find themselves pulled in (and they will!), one finds oneself wishing more and more - although perhaps subconsciously - that they had Halley for a best friend.